Reviews

…It was a masterful performance from conductor, soloist and orchestra… Ivanov played effortlessly and with beautifully pure tone through thorny phrases full of multiple stops and rapid figures, all the while giving a sense that he'd thoroughly wrapped his mind around the abstruse music.

Brahms Concerto en ré majeur op 77 - ...la fougue et l’entrain de Yossif sont en parfaite adéquation avec le caractère à la fois fiévreux et enjoué des fêtes bohémiennes que Brahms voulait évoquer. - Marie Charlotte Mallard

…Like the Fourth Concerto, the Fifth has had a number of recent champions, beginning with Heifetz, who recorded it twice, the first version as authoritative a performance as the concerto might have received from its composer. Grumiaux recorded it with Rosenthal in 1963. …Yossif Ivanov plays with a commanding brilliance and never seems to be looking over his shoulder (in this company, who would dare?). He doesn’t need to. Everything’s technically crisp (especially staccatos) and extrovertedly rhetorical (the slow movement’s a good example). Arpeggios roll darkly (can this be what Nathan Milstein referred to as his own “Black Sea technique”?). Here’s a performance that stands almost head and shoulders with the most illustrious.- Robert Maxham

…Contemporaneous with the Britten is Samuel Barber’s glorious Violin Concerto (1939). Yossif Ivanov “not yet 21 years old” (to quote from his biography) gave a wonderful showing in the solo part. His technical ability always served this beautifully Romantic concerto and his reticence in the first movement was very affecting; a good tempo, too, flowing with purpose and avoiding it being the first of two slow movements. When that did arrive, Ian Hardwick led off with an eloquent oboe solo and Ivanov dug deep into his instrument to produce a rich sound that could, from a less innate musician, have been considered applied. The brief finale dashed and darted, textural luminescence never threatened – and this lovely and colourful work concluded with a unanimous flourish. Alsop, very familiar with this music, and the LPO were wholly excellent in support with much finely-placed detail. ‘Must hear more of Ivanov’, I was thinking. I didn’t have to wait long. He didn’t announce his encore, and for a while it seemed to be the slow movement of Bartók’s Sonata, but I believe he played the single-movement Sonata No.3 of Ysaÿe, known as ‘Ballade’; it was a quite marvellous performance, superbly executed and conveyed with insight and charisma. This guy’s special! - Colin Anderson

Deux artistes étrangers ont dominé le début et la fin de l'année : le célèbre pianiste Alfred Brendel à Pro Musica et le jeune violoniste Yossif Ivanov au Ladies Morning Musical Club - Claude Gingras