The Week in Reviews, Op. 329: Leila Josefowicz; Stefan Jackiw; Pinchas Zukerman; Hao Zhu

November 16, 2021, 2:00 PM · In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world.

Violinist Leila Josefowicz. Photo by Chris Lee.

Leila Josefowicz performed John Adams’ Violin Concerto with the LA Phil.

LA Times: "Josefowicz has played Adams’ concerto well over 100 times and has recorded it. Josefowicz, a MacArthur Fellow, has absorbed it like no other violinist.... Sunday’s performance proved newly revelatory."

Stefan Jackiw performed Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto with the Boston Philharmonic.

The Boston Globe: "“Jackiw’s encore was both fluid and weighted. He made the bar lines disappear; over the piece’s three minutes, he all but made time disappear."
Boston Classical Review: "His playing can be meltingly sweet one moment, steely the next. He doesn’t hide behind his vibrato; actually, Jackiw will sometimes eschew it for whole stretches. What’s more, his playing encompasses a range of characters: playful, sensuous, brawny, dancing, and much in between."

Pinchas Zukerman performed Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Reading Symphony Orchestra as part of "Violins of Hope."

Berks Weekly: "Zukerman played with marvelous technique befitting his fame, and the weight of history that accompanied the concert. The Violins of Hope are witnesses to history, silent unless they are in the hands of a skilled player. Zukerman’s violin sang, cried, lamented, bore witness."

Hao Zhu performed Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Colburn Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

San Francisco Classical Voice: "Zhou was up to its technical requirements, producing long, sustained, in-tune legatos to preserve the line of the first movement in a songful manner, blazing through the pyrotechnics of the long cadenza and immediately succeeding finale."

Hilary Hahn performed Vaughan Williams’s "The Lark Ascending" and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Slipped Disc: "Certainly, Hahn makes this music contain more worlds than one; certainly, she made it a tale of visionary adventure."

Alina Ibragimova performed Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Slipped Disc: "The long first-movement cadenza, accompanied only by a few quiet drumbeats, became a stunning succession of ideas. Here was Beethoven anticipating not just the transcendent virtuosity of Paganini but the mad scene of Romantic opera too."

Richard Tognetti performed various Baroque works with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Sydney Morning Herald: "In Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Tognetti cultivated a sound of smouldering fieriness, the orchestra playing with incisive drama."

Leonidas Kavakos performed with pianist Yuja Wang in Lincoln, Neb.

Lincoln Journal-Star: "(The Shostakovich sonata for violin and piano) found Kavakos, acclaimed for his technique, plucking and striking his 1734 "Willemotte" Stradivarius violin, a beautiful-sounding instrument as it moved through the abrasive second movement of the complex composition"

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The Week in Reviews, Op. 329: Leila Josefowicz; Stefan Jackiw; Pinchas Zukerman; Hao Zhu

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