But now, let's talk about the major thing, the concert. The first part started with the Carolian overture by Beethoven with Shuntaro Sato conducting the English Chamber Orchestra. Sato performed with a very extroverted body language. For my taste almost a little too much, but he let the orchestra always very precise and the piece was played with great dynamic and brought the audience into the right mood.

Then it was the turn on Nigel and when he entered the stage the people welcomed him with a warm applause. He started to cheer us up with a short funny story and he was a real chatterbox during the whole evening. Looking not quite the way you would expect from a classical musician wearing green shoes, black floating velvet trousers, blackspotted white waistcoat and his black jacket and not to forget his unique haircut. But all this became unimportant when Nigel rises his Guarneri. This violin has her characteristical voice and one can pick her out of thousands right away. From the first tone I got hooked and one could really feel his passion, intensity and deep emotions when he plays and his obious need to share it with every person in the concert hall. This is what I call magic.

The first piece he started with was the violin concerto in A Minor by J.S. bach. To play this piece the proper way you can't cheat and Nigel played it with such a superiority which showed his personal mental maturity to interpret Bach in this outstanding virtuosity. All passages sounded fresh, the folding of the sound voices are wasily understood and it was a shining example how to play Bach in a dynamic way, keeping the articulation always sensible but tense. Nigel got most personal in the last movement, the andante, where he showed energy, concertration and a terriffic verve which showed that he got very deeply into that composition. Therefore the audiece give him a long and loud well deserved applause.

For the second piece Nigel asked a young lady, Katharine Gowers, to join him on stage to perform the concerto for two violins and strings in D Minor by Bach. As this piece is one of Bach's major works both solists played with great confidence bringing the emotional side of the misic to the people. Especially in the slow movement the two artists played brilliant reflecting the moments of lyrisism with a very profound knowlegde of the lyrisism and poetry. The third movement let to a dramatic final and the astonishing brilliance of both kept the audience in rapt attention and this was expressed in a huge applause at the end.

After a short break it came up to the part most af the people in the concert hall were wainting for, namely the violin concerto in D Major by L. van Beethoven. This piece is also one of my favourites. In the first movement Nigel reveals a tremendous colourfull contrasty. With every single tone he dissociated himself from the ordinary smoothed out virtuosity, trying to search for the cliffs and groves which Beethoven put in the sonority of his score. He played in a partly roughen, detailed sound which forced the audience to listen very carefully. Nigel played headstrong and he tended to go almost to extremes, quite more then on his recorded version. It was a lenghtening of a phrase here and there and he tried going to the edge of the right intonation, but he never went beyond. He seemed to be very secure with this piece and played it very precise with a clean, gorgeous tone so that it never became just a personality show and according to this he played the well know cadenza by F. Kreisler. The second slow movement he performed with a rapturous glow with the melody coming out of center of almost stillness and tranquility and it seemed to the audience that the entire Larghetto was delivered as in a long deep breath. Then there was a brusque onset of the Rondo, which started furiously and revealed a passion and also quirkyness to the music. Nigel played fiercingly melodic phrases with electifying dynamic shifts which was inspiring not only the orchestra, resulting into the cadenza where he let his furious phantasy got free. It was absolutely thrilling.

What we heard that night was a very rare, personal and memorable performance. It was the thrilling, unique and most faithful interpretation of this violin concerto I've ever listened to. I found that this interpretation belonged totally to Nigel with this fearless, slightly callow bravado with such an emotional depth. his absolutely brilliant performance let the audience to an outrageous applause with staming feet, so it forced Nigel to come out again, together with Katharine Gowes, to give an encore. After a short chat what to play they decided to play three short pieces by Bartok. But for the audience it still wasn't enough so he played a second encore just by himself, a preludio for unaccompanied violin by Bach and that was the finale of a sensational event I was lucky to attend. I was deeply moved and I enjoyed that marvellous performance that much, I can't really tell.

Now back in good old Germany I can defenitely say:

I LOVE MY JOB - SOMETIMES!!!!!!