Hamilton Spectator, July 15, 2003

Star violinist 'brilliant throughout'

By Leonard Turnevicius
Special to The Hamilton Spectator

You can sure tell when Boris Brott feels a marvelous concert is in the offing. He'll be talking up a storm from the podium prior to his downbeat. And so it was last Saturday night at the duMaurier Centre as he led his NAO orchestra and star violinist, Lara St. John, in works by Mozart, Bach and Prokofiev.

Her live performance of the Bach resembled her CD recording. The first two movements were filled with verve, panache and subtlety. However, the manner of playing was a throwback to the 1960s and 1970s -- before the flourishing of period ensembles -- when copious amounts of vibrato, romantic crescendos, and biting modern Tourte bow attacks ruled.

The third movement, written in a dance-derived triple metre, was played far too quickly. It was Bach on steroids. St. John totally ignored the tempo of Brott's preparatory upbeat, selecting instead her seemingly pre-programmed Vivace. Exciting? Sure. Loads of really fast notes coming right at you. And St. John, with her prodigious technique, doesn't miss many.

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This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the Russian-Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). He left his country in 1918, seeking his fortune in the West. His career faltered and he was enticed back to the USSR, taking up permanent residence there in 1936, the only musical genius fool enough to believe Stalin's lies. This particular concerto (1935) was his last non-Soviet commission.

St. John, brilliant throughout, held the audience spellbound. Brooding, intense, fiery, passionate, satiric and witty were but a few of the moods she drew out of the 1779 "Salabue" Guadagnini violin.