“I was a big opera buff when I was growing up. I had a huge music collection and it was mostly all opera; I loved the stories and the dramatic arias, which I used to practise on the cello. For me it was all about the sentimentality, and I also loved Romantic works for the same reason. I was eleven years old when I first heard Strauss’s Don Quixote: Pierre Fournier was performing with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and I fell in love with it. When I started learning it myself, it became the piece that helped me understand it was OK to be emotional about instrumental music. Before that, I was simply improving my technique – I even felt embarrassed about my emotions while I was playing! I lived more through vocal pieces than anything instrumental, and when I had a choice I’d always go for the more vocal-sounding work. Even now, I get goosebumps when I’m playing Don Quixote live on stage, and I have to tell myself, ‘Focus! Focus!’ as if it’s wrong.”
Read MoreTexas Classical Review: Zukerman & Forsyth bring charm to light /
'“Forsyth’s performance was comparable, drawing a lush, hall-filling sound from her Testore cello. Offenbach, a cellist himself, wrote skillfully for the instrument, with a surefooted sense of line and a deep understanding of technique. Forsyth made the most of the possibilities of the piece, with thoughtful phrasing, flawless intonation, and a just-right vibrato that coalesced into a moving, musical whole…
Read MoreBoston Symphony Orchestra keeps it nostalgic with Avner Dorman premiere at Tanglewood /
Guest conductor Asher Fisch, who led the BSO on Saturday evening, has long been a champion of Dorman’s work. This busy and ultimately conservative Double Concerto was a star vehicle for its soloists: the married duo of violinist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Amanda Forsyth, longtime partners in both performance and life. With her robust timbre and earthy accents set against his silvery sound, which was ethereal without being silky, they played with obvious relish, and sounded more at ease with the piece than the orchestra did. After intermission, Zukerman again joined the BSO for Beethoven’s stately Romance No. 1 in G, dispatching tart and tight phrases with a few sour notes.
Read MoreIsraeli composer’s new double concerto is a gift to Zukerman — and the world /
BOSTON — For renowned violinist Pinchas Zukerman’s 70th birthday, the world has been gifted a new piece of music.
“The Double Concerto for Violin and Cello and Orchestra,” composed by fellow Israeli Avner Dorman, will have its US debut on Saturday, August 3, at Tanglewood. It will be performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) under the baton of Israeli conductor Asher Fisch.
Read MorePREVIEW: Zukerman, Forsyth to play Dorman Aug. 3 at Tanglewood /
Lenox — Violinist and conductor Pinchas Zukerman‘s relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra began in 1969 at Tanglewood with a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Concerto for Violin in D Major. On Saturday, Aug. 3, he will make his 23rd Tanglewood appearance, joined by his wife, cellist Amanda Forsyth, performing, for starters, Beethoven’s Romance No. 1 in G for violin and orchestra. But the weightiest event of Saturday’s concert is the American premiere of Avner Dorman‘s Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra.
Read MoreReview: ASO's Winter Fire /
Very different fare arrived with the world premiere of Avner Dorman’s “Double Concerto”, in which the temperaments of solo violin and cello were deliberately pitted against and then harmonised with the rest of the orchestra. Benjamin Northey steered brilliant performances by Zukerman on violin and Amanda Forsyth on cello. For the record, Zukerman was all in black and Forsyth in a fiery Chinese red dress, a contrast that added a bit more theatre to moments when their instruments spoke quite differently with each other and the orchestra.
Read MoreMaster Series 4: Winter Fire /
Pinchas Zukerman on violin and Amanda Forsyth on cello know each other very well on a range of levels, and their understanding of what makes each other ‘tick’ was especially evident in tonight’s incisive performance. It was a delight to see their superlative musicianship in action, both separately and as a partnership. They fed off each other and the whole was greater than the sum of their individual parts. Dorman was sitting in the audience and his appreciation of Zukerman and Forsyth’s musicality was abundantly clear. Although Dorman knows his own score inside out, he surely would have gained deeper insights into his own creation because of the adeptness and acuity of Zukerman and Forsyth’s performance.
Read MoreAiling Mehta Returns to Give Strong Brahms Performances /
Cellist Amanda Forsyth joined Zukerman in a very fine reading of the Double Concerto. Even more than her partner, Ms. Forsyth displayed a marvelous air of spontaneity, seeming to inhabit the music as she played it. Together, they put their considerable chamber-music experience to great use in Brahms’ final orchestral work. The playing showed a wide range of color, not only from the two soloists, but also from the orchestra.
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