Tasmin Little and Sinfonia Classica

VIVALDI'S Four Seasons is such a descriptive work that every season
depicted is so true to its title, so the listener is left in no doubt as to the scene.

What was so striking to me and indeed Mary, my companion for the
evening, was how orchestra and soloist were so much 'at one' in all that they did.

Tasmin Little's virtuosity together with Sinfonia Classica's consummate musicianship under their fine director, surely could not be bettered wherever and by whoever performed. Indeed a full, appreciative and knowledgeable audience were quite rapturous in their applause.

North Devon Journal

Seen and Heard International Concert Review

For the playing we heard in these performances, “excellent” is by far too weak a word. Where has Tasmin Little been all my life? Having now heard her for the first–and the second–time, I have no hesitation in declaring that this is one of the supremely great violinists of our time. Her tone in every register was ravishingly lovely, her articulation (through all the extraordinary ardors of this exceptionally taxing work) impeccably crisp and clean, her phrasing eloquent in the extreme, her response to every one of the composer’s indicated nuances unstintingly complete. Her playing awakened, for me, memories of one violinist of an earlier generation: Erica Morini, who had a similar purity of tone, probably in part the result of uncompromisingly straight bowing, and a comparable feeling for style and expression. Little’s performance was the finest realization of this masterpiece I can remember hearing, and Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony were no less splendid in support, or rather partnership.

I know we are only in March, as I write, but the rewards Tasmin Little, Gerard Schwarz, and the Seattle Symphony (not to mention Elgar and Dvořák) lavished on us in this superb pair of concerts established it at once as a practical certainty for next winter’s Performances of the Year list.

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Tasmin Little is a big hit with Seattle Symphony audience

English violinist Tasmin Little continued her residence with the Seattle Symphony this week with a weighty slab of English beef, the Elgar Violin Concerto. One could hardly find more contrast to her performances last week of "The Four Seasons." The Elgar concerto is nearly an hour long, and requires much of the soloist and the orchestra, not to mention the audience.

Little was certainly up to it. The orchestra began with its full, consonant string sound, putting this early 20th-century piece solidly back in the Romantic era, preparing the way for Little's entrance. The opening solo passages are written in the lower registers of the violin. They produce a very English, understated melancholy that Little completely rode with. The instrument itself seemed to lean toward darker tones, even when played in the higher registers. The Andante second movement was lighter, sweeter, and ventured into stratospheric territory.

The finale was full of rewards for the patient listener. The orchestra opened with grandeur, forming waves that Little skipped over like a mad sprite. It's always a joy to witness an artist with this kind of life-spark, who really connects with the music, with her instrument, with listeners. The audience's response to her was thunderous.

Violinist Tasmin Little is impressive at Benaroya Hall

British violinist Tasmin Little is one of many international performers
who have been making big efforts to persuade the general public that
classical music is worth hearing. She gives free downloads from her
Website of her latest CD, "The Naked Violin" ("naked" here merely means unaccompanied), and solo performances in unusual places where people can pay less than they would for an ordinary concert ticket or attend free.

She gave one of these here last weekend, but Thursday she played in a regular Seattle Symphony concert, performing Elgar's Violin Concerto. Little is a fine proponent of English music and the Elgar is a work she has taken on tour and clearly knows deeply...

The first thing one notices about Little is her extraordinarily beautiful tone on those low strings (much less easy to achieve than on the higher ones). It shone with richness and warmth. Some of this may be due to her violin, a 1757 Guadagnini, but that doesn't detract from her artistry.

The concerto's slow movement is the most noteworthy, highly romantic and lengthy but not saccharine. Little's tone is equally velvety and warm on the upper strings and she sustained the shape and melody through the movement's long, somewhat meandering end, to such effect there was not a sound in the hall between its end and the beginning of the last movement.

Conductor Libor Pesek leads violinist Tasmin Little and the RLPO in a programme of classical favourites

There's something comforting about a meeting of old friends.

You may not see each other from one year to the next, yet when you do
it’s if you’d never been apart.

And thus it was with both guests at this evening at the Phil - Libor
Pesek, possibly the Czech Republic’s most famous honorary Scouser, and über-violinist Tasmin Little on something approaching her 50th visit to Hope Street.

Little is distinctly unshowy considering her stature in the music world.
But while it may add an entertaining dimension to proceedings, in the
end you don’t necessarily need the spectacle of grand, sweeping gestures to appreciate and admire her artistry.

Her interpretation of Mendelssohn’s innovative (for the time) concerto
was a lesson in control and quiet delicacy of technique, coaxing the
sweetest of sweet notes from even the highest reaches of her 300 - year - old Stradivarius in the opening movement and showcasing
lightning quick fingerwork in the last.