New Jersey Star-Ledger, July 23, 2001

Letting her hair down.

During the intermission of Lara St. John's violin recital one wag suggested, "Sometimes you let your hair down, and sometimes you don't." While this was a reference to the soloist's neverending struggle to keep her long hair where she wanted it while playing, it served to remind this listener that the recital was all about "letting her hair down."

There was nothing tame or over-controlled about Ms. St. John's Beethoven. She and pianist Ilan Rechtman lit into the fiery music with a full range of emotion. This allowed the second movement's vivid dynamic contrasts, one of its primary structural points, to become as deeply involving in its drama as the slow movement of the composer's fourth piano concerto, which uses dynamics as the most obvious dramatic medium.

Prokofiev's Sonata No. 1 lived at an even more intense level. At times St. John allowed it to become downright violent without sacrificing musicality for ugliness. Yet it was the opposite mood which left the greatest impression. The violin's eerie sound of the wind whistling around gravestones and distant bells tolling in the piano were hair-raisingly conveyed. It is one of Prokofiev's most striking evocations in all his works.

After solid, serious music to open each half of the concert, Ms. St. John concluded with fluff - really difficult fluff to be sure, but fluff nevertheless. Pianist Rechtman (a John Corigliano look-alike) put together a piece called Csardas which proved to be wildly funny. It is built of the materials of "various known czardas" pieces as he put it, and their outrageous juxtapositions were imaginative at the same time as being a "name that tune" game. Whichever czardas was being played, it was turned into a technical showpiece for St. John, whose chops are undeniable.

And then there is the take Franz Waxman (the film composer) did on Bizet's [Carmen.] It is very hard, very showy, and just as funny as [Csardas.] The most obvious joke is the "Toreador Song" played as if it were composed by a madcap Gershwin. The audience loved it and, as the saying goes, "what's not to love?"

Of course there was an encore, which she declined to announce. Everyone knew it was Kreisler, and she played it delightfully. Which Kreisler was a matter of debate after the concert, but she couldn't fool this writer, who grew up with a recording of [Schön Rosmarin] and knew it cold.

By Paul Somers