Gil Shaham
Violin Concertos 1939
75 years ago, the world was on the brink of war, the most devastating war ever suffered by humanity. During these years, three composers of completely different origin – Samuel Barber, Béla Bartók and William Walton – wrote violin concertos. Indeed, they were not the only ones. The 1930s saw a remarkable boom of the violin concerto, the likes of which had not been seen since the 1890s. Compositions by Stravinsky, Britten, Prokofiev, Hindemith, Berg and Hartmann have resounded in distinctive concert series of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin in recent years.
Here is the wonderful opportunity to listen to three protagonists from three different cultures, the American Barber, the Englishman Walton and the Hungarian Bartók, as they take on this genre that is so rich in tradition, but also to observe whether and how their music reflects the world of their day and their immediate historical or personal situation. These insights are afforded us by one of the outstanding violinists of our times, Gil Shaham, who was invited to join the RSB for the performance of these works in Berlin. On three separate evenings at the Konzerthaus, Shaham plays these three violin concertos from the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, coupled with symphonic works of complementary aesthetic substance selected by Marek Janowski.
Gil Shaham, the Soloist
When it comes to good music, Gil Shaham knows no reservations. He plays a Bach partita for solo violin with the same intensity he brings to his interpretation of the waltz sequence from Strauss’ Rosenkavalier. He coaxes Piazzolla tangos from the four strings of his violin with true South American languor; when he plays the violin sonatas of César Franck or Gabriel Fauré, he hits the noble and passionate tone of a Frenchman with perfection. Shaham considers himself a Romantic and admits it openly. This applies above all to his inimitable style: full, beautiful, tasteful, not in the least ascetic or shrill. To the extent that the modern age or perhaps Vivaldi are able to yield to this premise, there is no epoch he wouldn’t take on.
Since he won the sought-after Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990, Shaham has been considered among the best violinists in the world. In 1992, he also won the Accademia Musicale Chigiana International Prize in Siena, with which musicians such as Gidon Kremer, Shlomo Mintz, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Krystian Zimerman or Jewgenij Kissin have previously been honored. Shaham’s recording of Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and his Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 2 was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2000.
Born in 1971 in Champaign-Urbana in the state of Illinois, USA, Shaham grew up in Israel. At the age of seven, he began studying the violin with Samuel Bernstein at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. The America-Israel Cultural Foundation awarded him annual scholarships over the course of several years to promote his extraordinary talent. In 1980, while studying with Haim Taub, Shaham played before violin greats Isaac Stern, Nathan Milstein and Henryk Szerying. From 1980, he regularly attended the Aspen Music School in Colorado in the summer months, where he studied with Dorothy DeLay, Jens Ellerman and Hyo Kang.
His solo career began in Jerusalem in 1981 and led him to Tel Aviv, to the USA and, in 1986, to Europe, where he caused a furor at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Since then, he has played with all of the great orchestras of Europe, yet he still finds time for chamber music and solo performances. For all of his success, Gil Shaham has preserved his modest, attentive and uncomplicated nature. The amiable violinist is the father of a young son and lives with his family (his wife Adele Anthony is an excellent violinist in her own right) in New York.
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