Tasmin Little was the charismatic soloist in Bach's E major Concerto and Mozart's Concerto no 5. She addressed both full of heart and cheerfully untroubled by findings of the "original instruments" group. Her swooping portamenti and a generous vibrato had no truck with forensic authenticity.

She brought out the essence of the works through pure musicianship. From the start of the Bach concerto, it was clear Little regarded herself as
"first among equals", unobtrusively allowing members of the ensemble to take centre stage when the melodic interest was in their domain, an extrovert reading of great sweep in which the contemplative Adagio was awarded due gravity, and the exuberant Finale brought crisply articulated playfulness as well as grace and charm.

Little was on top form in Mozart's A major Concerto. She bravely gave full weight to the pause before her first solo in the opening movement,generating expectation, fulfilled by a display of polished artistry. The "Turkish" elements in the central passage of the Finale were infectiously "pesante", in stark contrast to the insouciant urbanity of the surrounding
Minuet.

She (Tasmin Little) had a pleasing way of highlighting the dying fall at the end of phrases, which really made them dance, and she made the emphatic Vivaldi-like phrases strong without heaviness.

Then Tasmin Little returned, in a new purple outfit for Mozart's brilliant A Major Violin Concerto, known as the Turkish because of the unexpected invasion of a stamping "Turkish" dance into the elegantly curtseying finale. She gave it just the right controlled abandon, and judged the transition back to European urbanity with perfect tact.

Seattle Chamber Music Society:
An explosion of energy, expertise

Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor must stand as one of the great trios in the entire repertoire, and anytime it's performed is an occasion. But music lovers don't always get the kind of performance Monday night's festival audiences heard at the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Lakeside concert, where three gifted players seemed to inspire each other.

Violinist Tasmin Little, cellist Ronald Thomas and pianist Adam Neiman were well matched in terms of artistic temperament and interpretation. Both Little and Thomas are strong, occasionally forceful players of considerable technical finesse; Neiman is a pianist of wide range and unfailing musicality. Together they created a probing, searching performance of tremendous energy and expertise.

The opening movement, unforced and wonderfully atmospheric, set the tone for what was to follow — right down to the movement's ending, long drawn-out string harmonics that dwindle to a mere thread of sound, but are terribly difficult to support and sustain properly. The wild liveliness of the second movement, the deep and somber tones of the third and the impetuous finale just got better and better.

Playing at this level always ignites a response, and the audience rose for one of those ovations for which the festival is famous: sustained cheering that rang long into the night.

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphonies 1-9; Job; Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis; The Lark Ascending; The Wasps, Overture: Fantasia on "Greensleeves".

Amanda Roocroft (soprano), Thomas Hampson (baritone), Patricia Rozario (soprano), Tasmin Little (violin), Women of the BBC Symphony Chorus, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis. Warner Classics 2564 61730-2 (6CDs).

" .....I have already made brief mention of the other works included here
but would pick out Tasmin Little's warm-hearted performance of The Lark Ascending which is perhaps the best version since Hugh Bean recorded the work, on EMI, with Sir Adrian Boult..... "

Link to the CD of "The Lark Ascending"

Download
Tasmin's Interview with Eire Radio regarding this recital.

Even the greatest violinists sometimes skate too superficially across the surface of this beautifully finished music, as both the legendary Jascha Heifetz and, in our own time, Itzhak Perlman, have done on disc. Probing the work's philosophical and emotional underpinnings can be a harrowing process, as it certainly was for Tasmin Little last Sunday. But her efforts were rewarded by as deeply satisfying a performance of this elusive piece as I have ever heard in the concert hall. She was greatly assisted by her conductor, Richard Hickox, an Elgarian of stature who drew playing of world-class bloom and refinement from the London Symphony Orchestra. My only sadness is that the LSO Live microphones weren't there to capture it for posterity. Tasmin has played this concerto about 40 times and her interpretation is every bit as compelling as that of her near-contemporary Nigel Kennedy, who has recorded it twice for EMI, hugely successfully. Tasmin should be given the same opportunity, and every Elgarian will bless the company that affords it.

Very fired up today by Tasmin's glorious performance of the Elgar Violin Concerto last night with the LSO. And - what an extraordinary piece it is - with an intensity that transmutes from mood to mood but never really lets up. Tasmin really went for it: wonderfully secure, beautiful eloquent tone, deeply involved in every moment of the work, and with a particularly impressive sense of ensemble with orchestra and conductor. She did indeed make the piece very much her own, as I thought she would; the result was that it seemed part of her and she seemed part of it. Fabulous.

In his direction of an alert LSO in the Violin Concerto, with Tasmin Little an assured soloist, Hickox achieved a subtle calibration of the public and private spheres. It is the interplay of those spheres that lies at the heart of Elgar's music, and Hickox's sensitivity to the mood of self-communing in which the soloist is frequently required to indulge ensured that the orchestra never masked her. It is true that the composer, through the skilful redistribution of weight in solo and tutti passages, makes the task easier. Nevertheless, these fine musicians seem to know instinctively how to engineer foreground and background: the celebrated accompanied cadenza near the end of the work offered something of a masterclass in this respect.

.... The popular violinist Tasmin Little's luminescent and fresh interpretation of the Mendelssohn Concerto was superb music-making - pure, unfussy and utterly rejecting the more histrionic bombast that occasionally passes, on the modern concert stage, for musicality.