Conductor: Krill Karabits
Violinist: Nikolai Szeps-Znaider
Huge, tiered forces are amassed for Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s CATAMORPHOSIS (2020) which opens this concert: Eight double basses, four percussionists with a battery of unusual instruments, big string sections and two tubas complete with mutes. And we’re in a mysterious world of hisses and sighs along with much intensity as the composer tries to evoke the fragility of nature and fear for the future, especially in her native Iceland. Complete with urgent glassandi and many sustained chords, it must be enormously difficult to play because it’s a substantial 20 minute piece requiring enormous concentration because there are few landing places. Unlikely to become a Classic FM favourite, CATAMORPHOSIS is nonetheless an interesting contrast to the rest of the programme.
Bruch’s Violin Concerto no 1 (1864-8) is a magnificent piece. That’s why it fills concert halls and, in this instance, invokes a silent but palpable sigh of relief from many of the listeners in the audience. Conductor Krill Karabits draws incisive, colourful sound from the string sections which are seated, as so often these days, with second violins to his right and cellos in the middle. Numbers are now are much reduced and all strings are at floor level.
Nikolai Szeps-Znaider brings fine sweetness of tone to the solo part especially at the introduction of the “big” lyrical tune in the opening movement. He has a strong sense of being in duet with the orchestra and often turns to them rather than to the audience, even occasionally playing a few bars with then as a quasi warm up for his virtuosic entries. That rapport is probably rooted in his dual career. We see Szeps-Znaider on the podium as often as he performs as soloist. He gets a particularly lovely sound in the lower registers of his instrument especially in the adagio. Full marks to the bassoons in the closing movement and the flamboyant final bars are as energico as Bruch could have wished.
Many soloists try to address the audience verbally before playing an encore. Most are excruciatingly bad at it. Szeps-Znaider, however, is audible, confident and engaging telling us how pleased he is to back in London before playing the Sarabande from JS Bach’s Partita in D minor
In many ways Beethoven’s joyous Sixth Symphony (1805) belongs to the woodwind section and in this performance Karabits ensures that we hear their every note and nuance. He’s very good at shaping the music and this performance is a pleasing example of how to make something very well known sound fresh-minted, 221 years after its first performance. The first movement comes with exciting dynamic control and delightful dialogue between bassoon and flute.
Of course this symphony is, famously, Beethoven’s declaration of his determination to rise above his deafness by rejoicing in the countryside and Karabits allows the “shepherd’s pipe” and the storm, plus the ensuing calm, to work all the requisite narrative and emotional magic.
Reviewed on 8 April 2026
