I seem to be pretty boooked up all week - this evening a splendid concert at the Cadogan Hall with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Friday evening the opening of the new production of Charpentier's Medea at the Coliseum, Saturday the Met HD relay of Rigoletto, and Sunday the LSO with Haitink and Bruckner 9 at the Barbican.
I just got back from the Academy concert, graced by the music making of Janine Jansen, and the music of the youthful Mozart. Janine Jansen played and conducted - two Mozart concertos and his first symphony written in 1764 when he must have been eight......scary. Well it is prodigious for an eight year old, but scarcely a masterpiece. Interesting though! The two concertos however were written in Salzburg when he was 19 - middle aged as it turned out. And as a violinist myself as an adolescent I know these pieces intimately although I never played them - far too difficult for my modest talents. But in those days one one was avaricious for hearing new music. And I had records of the whole violin repertoire, including recordings of these concertos by Jascha Heifetz of all unlikely people.
I was glad this evening to hear performances, of immaculate character in all respects, by the gentle passionate Janine Jansen. By the way - of Chicago interest - she plays the Stradivari "Barrere" violin, owned by the Stradivari Society of Chicago.
Comments