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Mozart, Beethoven, and Dvořák: Stefan Jackiw, violin, Seattle Symphony, John Fiore, cond., Benaroya Hall, Seattle, 6.11.2008 (BJ)


The Seattle Symphony is an assemblage of highly talented musicians, but this was not their finest hour. Standing in for the first week of a two-week engagement that André Previn had canceled, the American conductor John Fiore offered a completely different program, robbing us of the promised Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony.

That, however, was not the only problem. There were a fair number of fine solo contributions from individual members of the orchestra. But the general level of playing was lack-luster, the strings sound was almost scrawny, and even the usually impeccable horn section had a less than stellar evening.

Fiore managed the difficult feat of making Mozart’s Don Giovanni overture sound at the same time rushed and plodding, and Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony, at the other end of the evening, was devoid of both fire and charm. It was painfully evident that little attention had been paid to matters of balance or intonation–at any rate, results from such attention were sorely lacking.

Pleasure was to be had only from the evening’s soloist, the phenomenally gifted Stefan Jackiw, who already, barely into his twenties, must be ranked one of the outstanding violinists now before the public. I had previously heard him in relatively undemanding works. Now, tackling the Beethoven Concerto, he deployed a combination of technical aplomb and musical acumen that was wonderful to experience. His tone, even when he fined it down to a breathtaking pianissimo, was pure and warm, and his phrasing was at once assured and unfailingly sensitive.

Only once or twice did I find a certain lack of true staccato articulation regrettable. This is something that he will surely rectify with longer experience– or that he might indeed have rectified on this occasion, if he had had a more alert and sympathetic conductor to collaborate with. Aside from the humdrum quality of the orchestral accompaniment, which never really sang even in the slow movement, this was a most distinguished scaling of an Everest in the violin’s repertoire. Then Jackiw showed with his encore, a supple and beautiful account of the Largo from Bach’s Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 in C major, what he is capable of when freed from the constraint imposed by inadequate support.

Bernard Jacobson


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