Word: virtuoso
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...Shaham is now recognized as a consummate virtuoso the world over, and his recital last Friday (as part of BankBoston's 60th Annual Celebrity Series Concert Series) proved to a packed audience at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall why this is the case...
...signs seemed to point elsewhere. Opening with Sonata No. 3 in E Major by J.S. Bach, Shaham was quick to highlight his remarkably fluid sense of a musical line and his impressive control of dynamics and tempo. However, the work was fairly unimpressive as an opening to a virtuoso's concert, and Shaham often failed to infuse the more lyrical sections with enough musical vitality and frequently attacked the quieter parts too aggressively. On a positive note, the choice of an early work did reflect the rest of the programs excellent selection of music from all genres and time periods...
...turbulent, impassioned work that seems almost schizophrenic in its frenetic metric upheaval, alternation of fast and slow and its jagged leaping between notes, and thus the overly-vigorous attacks that seemed so out of place in Bach seem most appropriate here. The piece obviously requires the attentions of a virtuoso, and Shaham was up to the task, flawlessly tossing off harmonics, contorted chords, astronomically high melodies and endless strings of fast-paced arpeggios. The piece is interesting in that the final raucous section marked "Fast and Brilliant" also highlights the piano, and at Friday's concert Akira Eguchi, a well...
...Carmen brought the concert to a triumphant close. The sultry melodies and sensual Spanish rhythms of Bizet's opera Carmen have led many composers to excerpt various dances and songs from the work. The flamboyant style of the melodies have made the work especially attractive to composers looking for virtuoso showpieces, and for no instrument has the opera been more metamorphosized in this manner than the violin. Pablo de Sarasota's Carmen Fantasy is probably the most famous, but there are also violin works by the German composer Franz Taxman and the Hungarian Jennie Hubby. Friday's concert marked...
...other a surprisingly sedate charmer (arranged by one of the most famous of all violin virtuosi, Fritz Kreisler) entitled The Waltzing Dog--both showing Shaham's ever-present humor. All in all Gil Shaham is truly to be congratulated for a successful glimpse at the world of the virtuoso...