Review: New concerto was written for powerhouse violinist — and he delivered

March 17, 2017 – James Ehnes underscored his reputation as one of today’s finest violinists with the U.S. premiere of the new Aaron Kernis Violin Concerto. Lengthy, complex and assertive, the new concerto demands almost superhuman agility and stamina of Ehnes, the soloist for whom it was written, and he rose to the challenge.

He is well known as a player who can make his violin do anything, but even Ehnes must have been taxed by the dizzying array of double stops, complex fingerwork and incredibly speedy passages throughout the instrument’s compass. Conductor Ludovic Morlot did a fine job of balancing the instrumental forces.

Dotted with cadenzas that put the soloist back in the forefront, the concerto demonstrated Kernis’ command of the complete orchestral palette, from cataclysmic brass passages to otherworldly solo harmonics over hushed strings. He made imaginative and inventive use of percussion, harp and tuba. And in the wildly eclectic third movement, Kernis pushed the soloist toward the frontiers of technique, with double-stop runs and a final cadenza so scarily difficult that audience members were gasping in disbelief.

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