If you're going to emulate great musicians from the past, you could do
worse than choose Bach and Mozart. Maybe this crossed Julia Fischer's mind
when she was planning her January 2008 concert with the Junge Deutsche
Philharmonie under Matthias Pintscher. For the renowned violinist, named
"Artist of the Year" in 2007 by the U.K.'s "Gramophone" magazine, did
exactly as Bach and Mozart did: she appeared in public as a soloist on two
completely different instruments, the violin and the piano.
Fischer, who also trained as a pianist, pulled off this rare and risky
feat with extraordinary prowess. In Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 in
B minor op. 61, she weaves her lines seamlessly into the orchestral
texture, emerging now with prominent embellishments, now with passionate
cantilenas, or withdrawing to let the woodwinds express themselves as
equals. The most well-known of Saint-Saëns' violin concertos, it was
written in 1880 for the celebrated virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate.
For her "piano" part of the evening, Julia Fischer chose the popular Grieg
Concerto in A minor op. 16, a warhorse that shares with the previous work
an intricate interweaving of the solo and orchestral parts. Commenting on
her flawless piano technique and utterly natural artistry on this
instrument, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: "She mastered the
work with bravura ... a more than amazing double talent." Or triple?
Fischer - the youngest violin professor in Germany - is scheduled to
conduct the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in February 2009. The
concert also includes two works by Richard Strauss, Don Juan op. 20 and
the Rosenkavalier Suite.
