The Strad, July 1999

Lara St. John

This playing is deliriously over-the-top. Lara St. John has a stunning technique (you need it for the Waxman Carmen Fantasy in particular) and knows just how to use it for maximum effect. When the notes start teeming she simply puts her foot down on the accelerator and playes even faster; when the all-pervading gypsiness of this music turns inward and brooding, she does the whole Douglas Fairbanks bit: roguish, swaggering, irresistibly charming, it's all there and more.

Make no mistake, this is high-voltage playing with a vegeance.

Outbursts of blistering staccato are momentarily resolved in moments of quiet introspection (as the pianist Ilan Rechtman's Variations an Dark Eyes), only to set off even more breathlessly than before.

Submitting Bartok's Second Rapsody to such a hair-raisingly technicolour treatment may well ruffle a few critical feathers. This is playing more redolent of the gypsy encampment than Carnegie Hall (albeit staggeringly accomplished) and I must say I enjoyed every minute of it. Rather than holding the music at arm's length, St. John digs deep and uncovers realms of expression that traditional readings barely hint at. Even the opening section of Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen comes electrifyingly alive - this is edge-of-the-seat playing that has you guessing at just what is going to happen next. Neither have I ever heard Ravel's Tzigane played with such uninhibited daring and electrifying intenstity.

Not for the faint-hearted perhaps, but of its kind a sesational recital.