Empathy and character combine to striking effect
The Strad Issue: January 2026
Description: Empathy and character combine to striking effect
Musicians: Alexandra Tirsu (violin) Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
Works: Hindemith: Violin Concerto. Shostakovich: Violin Concerto no.1
Catalogue number: FUGA LIBERA FUG859
A richly ominous bass line opens Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto, Alexandra Tirsu’s violin whispering mercurially over this in the long wearisome phrase of the Nocturne (taken at a noticeably slower tempo than on David Oistrakh’s 1972 recording with Maxim Shostakovich).
Tirsu is absolutely under the skin of this music, slowly reaching an anguished fury at the movement’s climax. She employs a similar strategy in the third-movement Passacaglia in which cellos and basses announce the fateful theme with horns potently articulating the arrival of the exquisitely sad violin solo, tenderly given by Tirsu.
After a carefully sculpted Cadenza, the brittle and brusque Burlesque storms in, with dazzling virtuosic delivery of the fervent figuration and tautly nuanced orchestral playing adding bite to the narrative.
Tirsu has already been hailed for her interpretation of the Hindemith concerto at the ARD Radio Competition, so it’s no surprise that she delivers with great empathy the dark hues of the work – which was written in 1939 under the shadow of increasing Nazi aggression. She is particularly evocative in the second-movement Langsam, where her lyrical style is beguiling, effortlessly sailing in the highest register.
The orchestra under Petrenko is brilliantly incisive and lucid in the finale, over which Tirsu delivers immaculately characterised material alongside tenderness in the cadenza.
JOANNE TALBOT
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