Ongoing coverage of last week's Starling-DeLay Symposium on Violin Studies at Juilliard
On May 6 I was playing in a concert in which the main item in the first half was the Sibelius VC, performed faultlessly and with fire by 16-year old Cristina Dimitrova, a pupil at Wells Cathedral School in England. I believe she is Russian. She encored with a spectacular Kreisler's "Tambourin Chinois".
The second half of the concert was Saint-Saens' 3rd Symphony, the "Organ", chosen to celebrate the refurbishment of the church's organ, which included tuning it up to A440 for working with modern orchestras. When we returned to the platform after the interval I found our soloist sitting next to me in the firsts, ready to play. I must say her presence was invaluable and much appreciated by the section in that demanding symphony.
This is the first time I've had a visiting soloist join in with the orchestra after a concerto. Have others had this experience? Is it that uncommon?
Cristina was using the "Russian" string set-up - steel E and A, with, I believe, covered gut D and G. It projected extremely well.
Here is a YouTube link to part of the concerto being performed by Cristina in the 14th-century church of St Mary, Yatton (see Wikipedia for its history).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ivxx_qsmNls
The video was filmed with a hand-held camera by someone in the audience. I was sitting outside 3rd desk in the firsts, off camera most of the time.
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I remember seeing Vaughan Williams at a concert in Bristol's Colston Hall in the '50s. The great man was invited onto the platform to receive applause for one of his symphonies that had just been performed, promptly got lost in the viola section (of course!) and had to be rescued by the conductor.
The layout of the Colston Hall platform could be confusing sometimes, even for a solo recitalist. Another of my memories was seeing Artur Rubinstein, after the first half of his piano recital, walking off stage into the piano cupboard instead of the green room exit, to everyone's amusement, including his own, when he emerged.
The music director agreed and the soloist later realised he had never played the symphony before and had sight read the whole thing.
It's nice when soloists do this as quite a few don't even hang around to hear the 2nd half let alone join in.
Pity also the poor concert pianist. If they can't play a string instrument really well (some do, I believe) then they just can't join in for the second half!
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