Examiner praises NJSO’s ‘strongly entrenched artistry’
Examiner.com praises the NJSO's Czech program with conductor Christoph Kónig and violinist Stefan Jackiw:
Friday evening, April 24, 29-year-old American Stefan Jackiw deployed breathtaking violin technique in concert staples by Dvořák and Ravel, while German guest conductor Christoph König led New Jersey Symphony Orchestrain four interrelated pieces—three of which the orchestra played for the first time in its history, among them an unjustly neglected suite from a ballet hardly ever staged nowadays. Though the whole program was stellar, it was the soloist who brought the crowd to its feet. No wonder music topics in the press mention him frequently.
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A tall lithe Stefan Jackiw took the stage for the concert’s centerpiece, Dvořák’s “Romance in F Minor for Violin and Orchestra” (1877) and Maurice Ravel’s “Tzigane, Concert Rhapsody for Violin and Orchestra” (1924). The Romance’s numerous lengthy trills posed no challenge to the gifted musician. The violinist simply amazed in the piece’s super-quiet passages—totally audible in the vast auditorium’s farthest recesses—delicately wafting the composer’s lyrical lines, which hardly rise in volume beyond a whisper or a sigh.
In contrast, the French composer’s piece, titled “Gypsy,” referring to the intended musical style, ran the full range of volume from the quietest squeaks to the most raucous dramatic sweeps. As if a czardas, the slow introduction yields to an impassioned middle section steadily gaining in momentum until a fast, wild finish. Stefan Jackiw’s lightning-speed pyrotechnics, prodigious pizzicato, staccato bowing, and probably the deftest trills by anyone anywhere since Nicolò Paganini all created mounting tension until the final strokes caused a veritable eruption among enthusiastic concert-goers, many of whom swept to their feet in a rousing standing ovation.
NJSO’s strongly entrenched artistry blazes, both in familiar warhorse repertory and in works new to them. They are up to any challenge and acquit themselves like the seasoned professionals they are. Somehow they have avoided the staidness that sets in with some longevous arts organizations, but continually purvey their musical wares in ways ever fresh, ardent, exhilarating.