Saving Face With Sibling Revelry

SAVING FACE WITH SIBLING REVELRY
By Jay Nordlinger

New York Sun, NY
May 2 2007

He had played concertos in New York, but never a recital – and Sergey
Khachatryan remedied that on Monday night. The young Armenian violinist
– b. 1985 – appeared in Zankel Hall.

And he began with maybe the mightiest of all works for solo violin:
the Chaconne from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D minor. You hear this
so often in transcription, it was almost a relief to hear it on its
original instrument.

And Mr. Khachatryan did many things well in it: He was marked and
resolute – undoubting. And he was ever attentive to the melodic line.

But this was not exactly a spiritual experience. And Mr. Khachatryan
had technical problems, to boot.

He was sometimes flat, sometimes fuzzy, sometimes rough. A squeak
or two came out. And his sound was now and then sickly. Zankel Hall
can be an unforgiving place, its acoustics all-exposing. By the way,
the nearby subway trains seemed louder than ever. Nothing like a
solo-violin work to make them deafening. I could not agree more with
my colleague Fred Kirshnit: This situation is not "interesting" or
"funky" or "cool" or "urban." It’s a real shame.

After the Bach, Mr. Khachatryan played the Franck Sonata, joined
by the pianist Lusine Khachatryan. Mother? Sister? Aunt? Sister –
a couple of years older. She played the Franck with notable beauty
of tone – pearly – and notable smoothness. She is not just the sister
of a young star, but a musician in her own right.