Saturday 4 November 2006

A very big Huzzah! for Sergey Khachatryan playing the Shostakovich first violin concerto (with the Orchestre National de France under Kurt Masur). This concerto has known many fine performers, starting with Oistrakh and Kogan and including, recently, Vengerov, Repin, Sarah Chang and -- especially -- Leila Josefowicz. But, I suspect, Khachatryan is the greatest recorded performance yet. The fluency of his playing recalls Milstein; the purity of his double stops recall Vasa Prihoda. At 20 years old, he plays with an accuracy and a passion that sweep all before him. A really notable new recording; makes buying multiple, multiple versions of the same work somehow worthwhile.

Day completed by my greatest ox tongue yet; I fell asleep while it was cooking, so it boiled for a full six hours before I woke. But no matter; it absorbed the various herbs even better and it is now an ox tongue to die for. Ox tongue and Sergey Khachatryan; what a weekend!

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