The young Russian violinist presents an interesting, even unusual, selection of music to showcase his remarkable command of his instrument. However, one is tempted to question his decision to play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in D minor, a rather banal, academic, and even tedious work whose sole claim to fame is the fact that Mendelssohn was only 13 when he composed it. Sitkovetsky, of course, plays impeccably, but here the performer's brilliance fails to add luster to a mere composition exercise. Fortunately, Sitkovetsky ...
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The young Russian violinist presents an interesting, even unusual, selection of music to showcase his remarkable command of his instrument. However, one is tempted to question his decision to play Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in D minor, a rather banal, academic, and even tedious work whose sole claim to fame is the fact that Mendelssohn was only 13 when he composed it. Sitkovetsky, of course, plays impeccably, but here the performer's brilliance fails to add luster to a mere composition exercise. Fortunately, Sitkovetsky's playing, in which one discerns underneath the technical sheen a certain affective distance and reticence, convincingly conjures up the moods of melancholy solitude in Andrzej Panufnik's Violin Concerto. Taking in this music, particularly the desolate and even glacial images of the second movement, one cannot help admiring Sitkovetsky's ability to articulate the composer's ideas without imposing his own presence as interpreter. While Sitkovetsky's reticent objectivity also works for...
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