REVIEW: VIOLINIST LIGHTS A FIRE WITH KHACHATURIAN CONCERTO AT OAKLAND
By Cheryl North
San Jose Mercury News
4264468
01/25/2010 12:40:52 PM PST
Siberian-Armenian violinist Mikhail Simonyan will play Aram
Khatchaturian’s Violin Concerto with…
Armenian-Siberian violinist Mikhail Simonyan strode onto Oakland’s
Paramount Theatre stage last Friday evening, tucked his violin under
his chin, and proceeded unabashedly to win over his capacity audience
with his exposition of the fascinating beauty and intensity of the
music of Armenia.
The 23-year-old, who looks like a younger version of the Russian
Federation president, Dmitri Medvedev, played with the flair of
a 19th-century virtuoso idol – the sort that habituated the great
stages of Europe.
But instead of St. Petersberg’s Mariinsky Theater, Vienna’s Musik
Verein Hall, or some princely palace in Prague, Simonyan temporarily
ruled over the stage of the Paramount movie palace during the Oakland
East Bay Symphony’s "Notes from Armenia" concert. Michael Morgan
conducted with his usual warmth and elan – and as though he too had
a bit of Armenian blood in his veins.
Simply put, Simonyan produced one of the most seductive string tones
I’ve ever heard as he wielded a steady bowing arm artfully over the
strings of his 1769 Giuseppe Gagliano violin. His was a tone that
seemed to resonate with all the colors and gradations of the sonic
rainbow. Whether at pianissimo levels or racing through cascades of
virtuosic double-stops and cadenza passages, it penetrated through
the hall with laser clarity.
Reaping the benefit of all this vaunted versatility was the D major
Violin Concerto composed by Armenia’s Aram Khachaturian in 1940.