Portland Press Herald, November 14, 2002

Violinist offers fresh take on old favorite


Canadian violinist Lara St. John lived up to her advance publicity Tuesday night, in a striking performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E Minor (Op.64) with the Portland Symphony Orchestra under Toshiyuki Shimada. The word "striking" is used advisedly, as St. John often pounces on a phrase like a cat on a mouse. She also has a range of stage moves, exaggerated bowings and agonized facial expressions reminiscent of a slew of female fiddlers in the pops category. With all that, she is an excellent and daring musician, who is able to reinterpret a piece as familiar as the Mendelssohn. She dashes off virtuoso passages that give lesser players considerable trouble as if they were inconsequential - maybe they are - then seizes upon a particular beauty of the score with a catlike satisfaction. She also knows how to hold attention: for example, by starting some of the notes in the first-movement cadenza a quarter tone off and sliding into the correct pitch, or giving a couple of chords in the breathtaking finale a startling wolf-like texture.

For all its quirkiness, the performance was molded into a satisfying whole by the rapport between the soloist and the orchestra. Shimada sometimes moderates tempos to support soloists who are unsure of themselves. That was certainly not the case Tuesday. The capacity audience at Merrill Auditorium was ready to applaud after the first movement, but leaped to its feet after the spectacularly rapid but clearly articulated Allegro molto vivace. There was a line at intermission for St. John's autograph on her latest CD.