(E) I have been attending many wonderful performances at the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra but yesterday night was the first time, I witnessed a performer performing “an encore” under the demand of the public. As well written by Georgia Rowe from the San Jose Mercury News “Violinist Nikolaj Znaider and conductor Stephane Deneve deliver a stunning performance of the Nielsen Concerto with the San Francisco Symphony”:

“Nielsen’s 1911 score isn’t an easy piece; in fact, the symphony had never performed it before this week. Dense and challenging, it takes a great soloist, a skilled conductor and a responsive orchestra to pull it off.

Thursday’s performance, which repeats through Saturday evening, had it all. Deneve, who made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2009, has an excellent rapport with this orchestra, and Znaider, an artist of uncommon insight and faultless technique, approached the score with a brilliant mix of verve and clear-eyed focus.

Nielsen structured the score in two long movements, each in two parts, played without a break. Znaider sounded rich-toned in the first movement’s introduction, and he dispatched the agitated passagework that followed with clarity; his playing in the lyrical writing at the start of the second movement was wonderfully alluring. Throughout, he received sensitive, first-rate support from Deneve, who summoned gently shaped waves of sound and rhythmically precise turns of phrase from the orchestra right up to the spirited finale and fierce cadenza.”

If you did not have a chance to be at the Symphony this week, the following is a recording of the same concerto by Nokolaj Znaider:

Note: The picture above is Nikolaj Znaider.

Copyright © 2005-2016 by Serge-Paul Carrasco. All rights reserved.
Contact Us: asvinsider at gmail dot com.