Tasmin Little

2000 Reviews

Ligeti Concerto with CBSO/Simon Rattle
Royal Festival Hall, London

Once of the greatest living composers, Ligeti, made it into the series only in this final concert. But it was a triumphant entry, thanks to Tasmin Little's brilliant account of his Violin Concerto, a work that will surely establish itself up there with other concertos like the Berg. Both as a commanding soloist and part of the virtuoso ensemble, Little was in total control, right from her opening motif which spread like tentacles through the orchestra. She caught the deep melancoly of the melody that uncoils throughout the second movement and is picked up by wailing ocarinas and recorders. Under Rattle everyone evoked the mysterious allure of this score, and played through to the spiky close as if their lives depended on it.

John Allison, The Times 3/4/2000

Ligeti Concerto with CBSO/Simon Rattle
Symphony Hall, Birmingham

Amid a fabulous programme, one work naughtily romped away with the show: Ligeti's Violin Concerto, right from the extraordinary lilting organum of its open-stringed opening, of which Tasmin Little gave an endearing performance. The brilliance of Little's personality and playing is that one adores her but falls for the work. The sucession of nervy string ostinati with supporting marimba; the kind of Hungarian wistfulness that echoes Hary Janos or Erkel's bereft Melinda on the banks of the Tisza, with the woodwind section puffing on eerie ocarinas; or the near-actionable poaching from Szymanowski's atmospheric Song of the Night - they mesmerised everyone. You could have heard a pin drop.

Roderic Dunnett, The Independent 3/4/2000

Tasmin Little was a dazzling soloist in this reinterpretation of the virtuoso concerto, where every convention of form and gesture is thrown under new, brilliant light, achieving miraculous synthesis with Ligeti's microscopically focused language and technique.

Financial Times, 5/4/2000

The young English violinist, Tasmin Little, introduced herself as a very competent soloist. She produced transfixing colours.

Neue Kronen Zeitung, 26/3/2000

Recital with Piers Lane
Glasgow

There is not a violinist in Britain today who could hold a candle to Tasmin Little. To judge from her recital in Glasgow last night she is just getting better all the time. For a long time now the maturity of her playing has been a particularly impressive component of her musical armoury. But it seemed to me last night, and right across the wide range of repertoire she played, that this quality has developed further and is one of her greatest strengths.

Allied to the power of her playing, that maturity informed every corner of her probing account of Beethoven's Fourth Violin Sonata, a demanding work with the subtle drama of its opening movement, the need for discretion and understatement in its Andante, and the control required to turn its tempestuous finale into its uneasy close.

But if that was good, her playing of Faure's First Sonata - in which the concerto·abilities of her fabulous pianist,Piers Lane were outstanding, was profoundly impressive. Few violinists can sustain a stream of lyricism so fluidly, or so exquisitely gauge a climactic point as Tasmin Little did throughout this glowing, radiant performance.

And if anything, it was this element - Little the songstress - that characterised her second half stream of beauties by Janacek, Szymanowski and Delius, (the last with a ravishing coda that sprayed a gentle cloud of musical stardust) before she played her trump card in a display of musicianship and violin playing with Ravel's Tzigane. Glorious.

Michael Tumelty The Glasgow Herald 25/2/2000