antje weithaas - violin: artists - review - | karsten witt musikmanagement gmbh

WAZ, 06/11/2010 - on: Widmann Violin Concert with the Bochum Symphony --- Antje Weithaas began Jörg Widmann's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with a sensationally big sound, immediately capturing the full attention of the audience. She is only the second person in the world to play the concerto. The excitement that this incredible musician builds as the piece progresses can be felt from head to toe. A revelation! The soloist, the violin-diva, virtually dominates the orchestra - so tentative is her orchestral counterpart at the beginning of the piece. With a loud bang, however, the orchestra begins its rebellion. Widmann's grand pauses are so effective! Sloane and Weithaas take on the work with everything they have, overcoming its difficulties. The violin-solo consists "only" of long legato phrases in the beginning of the piece, but its technical virtuosity increases later on, almost to the point of insanity. Weithaas is a fighter! Her double stops are unimaginably clear and her musical ear is as good as the orchestra's, the audience's, and the conductor's combined. What a joy to listen to!

DER TAGESSPIEGEL, 04/04/2010 - on: Brahms' Double concerto with Johannes Moser and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin --- With extreme poise, cellist Johannes Moser sounded the first chord before flowing into a creamy cantilena; Weithaas' violin interrupted him with such a compellingly haunting sweetness, that she constantly trumps the animated and nuanced tone of the cello. Their eye contact and synchronized breathing and bowing exemplified pure communication and sparked virtuosic mini-dramas of arpeggios and double stops. Unbridled elation followed the brisk, dance-like finale.

DER BUND, 02/03/2010 - on: Mendelssohn's Double concerto with Alexander Lonquich and the Camerata Bern --- During the impetuous double concerto in d minor, violinist and artistic director Antje Weithaas and pianist Alexander Lonquich were on par with each other and impressed the listeners by perfectly balancing intellect and emotion: this is the sound of perfection.

RHEINISCHE POST, 23/02/2010 - on: Beethoven's Violin Concerto with the Bochum Symphony --- Antje Weithaas played her part with both zest and discretion. She conjured up an intoxicatingly beautiful melody, with tension that increased and then was gently pulled back without disturbing the tender melodic tone. (...) A wonderful concert experience, which the audience hailed upon its completion with calls of bravo.

RUHRNACHRICHTEN BOCHUM, 20/02/2010 --- Antje Weithaas astounds with her clear, elastic, and unbelievably precise style of playing, which has a splendiferous beauty that shines in the complex first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto.

DER BUND, 10/11/2009 - on: Debut-concert as the artistic director of the Camerata Bern --- Antje Weithaas is characterized by her sound technique and entirely unpretentious stage-presence, paired with a broad spectrum of emotional expression and an artistic temperament. She obviously had found great backing from her new orchestra. The violinist interpreted the work, which was written during the German invasion of Poland, sometimes with powerful attacks and a full tone, sometimes with delicate but clear veils of sound, and thus lent the hopelessness, sadness, and defiance of it a laconic voice.

KLASSIK.COM, 13.2.2009 - on: Mendelssohn-CD with Silke Avenhaus --- It is marvellous for example, how both musicians shade the second theme of the first movement [of the sonata in F Major 1838] with subtle nuances and profundity by attentively focussing on the changes between major and minor. ...more

FAZ, 11.2.2009 - of: concert with Silke Avenhaus --- In the concert series "Treffpunkt Klassik" in Kelkheim Town Hall , the duo made very precise distinctions between Brahms and Mendelssohn with regard to personal style and generation with the Violin sonata in F Major (1838) by the latter on the occasion of his bicentenial anniversary. Here they sounded much brighter with likewise specific expression, lively, joyfully excited, with elfish ease in the first and last movement. ...more

WIENER ZEITUNG, 18/11/2008 - of: Violin concerto op. 33 by Carl Nielsen with the Tonkünstler Orchestra under Kristjan Järvi in Vienna --- Antje Weithaas delivered a remarkable performance as soloist. She mastered the fast-paced passages impeccably, seemingly effortless, and the sound of her violin always remained supple and pure. With sensitivity, she savoured the lyrical passages.

PIZZICATO, February 2008 - of: Brahms CD with Silke Avenhaus --- once again, they have recorded an outstanding CD. It is characterised by perfect musical interaction (...). That requires a perfect technique, it is for instance worth listening to Antje Weithaas's brilliant intonation or the subtle playing of Silke Avenhaus. Brahms' music is living, breathing, full of suspense, it can be joyful, contemplative, cheerful and earnest. (...) Consequently, it is unnecessary to focus on certain moments as everything sounds so consistent. Even if their dedication is always present, their performance never lacks the confident knowledge of what is important to Brahms.

DER TAGESPIEGEL, 8/4/07 --- Sofia Gubaidulina's violin concerto „Offertorium" after the interval calls for a proactive interpreter. Antje Weithaas plays this work from 1981 with heroic empathy; in her flexible playing, Gubaidulina's sophisticated, almost corporeal instrumentation finds its perfect match.
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FAZ, 18/1/06 --- The concert began with Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 K218. With Antje Weithaas as soloist, the interpretation was so fresh, so perky in the outer movements and so genuine in the middle movement that even Mozart haters enjoyed it. ...more

THE STRAD, 10/2003 --- This was my first hearing of Antje Weithaas as a concerto soloist and I cannot recall a more beautiful account of a Mozart violin concerto - in this case the A major - in the concert hall. ...more

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH, 2/8/2003 --- The suggestion of something magically weightless recurred in Antje Weithaas's performance of Mozart's A major violin concerto. Some soloists give an earthy sense of the violin's physicality, of horse-hair biting or caressing the string. But not Weithaas. Her sound entrancingly pure, the bow hardly seeming to meet the string, and yet there's no lack of wit and verve in the playing. In the stamping "Turkish" episode in the finale there was a wonderful contained energy in the way she urged the pulse forward, while somehow staying firmly on the beat - another mysterious moment in a concert that was full of them.

Photo: Marco Borggreve