Outstanding Female violinists!
Fifty years ago, if you were a music lover and you enjoyed listening to violinists, you heard outstanding performers such as Jascha Heifetz, Nathan Milstein, David Oistrakh, Zino Francescatti, Isaac Stern, and a few others. At that time, the number of women who were at the top ranks of performers were only Erica Morini, and Ida Haendel. American violinist Maude Powell had died in 1920.
Times have changed! While we still have some amazing men who are violinists, many more women have come to the forefront. The men of today are Gil Shaham, Yithak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Maxim Vengerov, and more. BUT… the list of amazing female violinists includes a whole lot of women whose capabilities are absolutely terrific! Here is just a partial list, in no particular order:
Julia Fischer, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Hilary Hahn, Sarah Chang, Pamela Frank, Jennifer Frautschi, Leila Josefowicz, and: Janine Jansen.
Each of these women has outstanding qualities of tone, presentation, stage presence, musical sensitivity, and the ability to communicate great emotion. One of my great favorites is Janine Jansen, because of her power of showing me great passion in her playing.
I will share with you a few videos for illustration:
Here is Dutch violinist Janine Jansen in the Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint Saens:
Here is another amazing Jansen video:
And now here is Janine Jansen in Mozart Violin Concerto 5:
I have written a lot about another favorite, and that is Anne-Sophie Mutter; so I will not include her here; but I will show you Leila Josefowicz, performing the Bruch 1st Violin Concerto:
Just to make sure that I am fair to the men, here’s one of the great men of the violin, Mr. Gil Shaham:
Gil Shaham performs Bach – Gavotte en Rondeau:
Tags: Great women violinists, Janine Jansen, Mutter, Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, Pamela Frank, Jennifer Frautschi, Leila Josefowicz