Nikolaj Znaider

• Conductor
• Violinist

Reviews

Nikolaj Znaider press reviews

Review of Brahms & Korngold from The Toronto Star Cleveland Plain Dealer Concert Review: "Znaider met Brahms' challenge with a commanding, Apollonian technique". Early Praise for Brahms & Korngold: Violin Concertos Nikolaj Znaider's New Recording of the Brahms and Korngold Violin Concertos is Available Now -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From The Toronto Star By John Terauds NIKOLAJ ZNAIDER Brahms & Korngold Violin Concertos (RCA Red Seal): The 33-year-old Dane has a lyrical side that makes his interpretation a bit sweeter than Repin's. It's hard not to compare this recording of the haunting Korngold concerto with Canadian James Ehnes's award-winning effort. Znaider's playing is more effusive, Ehnes's smoother. Both are compelling. Valery Gergiev leads a fabulous-sounding Vienna Philharmonic here. 3.5 Stars (Out of 4) Top -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Read and except from The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Rave Review of Nikolaj Znaider's Concert with the Cleveland Symphony and conductor Pinchas Steinberg That sense of discreet but alert accompaniment served the audience well in Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77, with Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider in his first U.S. appearance of 2009. Fresh off recording the concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic, Znaider had the notes well-embedded in his fingers, so his performance Thursday night was one that spoke with exceptional authority. Brahms' concerto is anything but an empty virtuoso showpiece. Easily the most intellectual of the big standard concertos, it nevertheless makes huge demands on the soloist, not only in terms of technique but in the thrust of its rhetoric and narrative. Znaider proved that, even at his relatively tender years, he is more than equal to the challenge that Brahms first set before Joseph Joachim, for whom the work was written in 1878. Znaider met Brahms' challenge with a commanding, Apollonian technique. His bowing was flawless, moving among the strings seamlessly, and the triple-stopped chords in the lengthy first movement were played as precisely as if they had been sounded on a keyboard. Yet there was fire aplenty. Beneath Brahms' hard-fought logic there is a suppressed passion that Znaider emphasized brilliantly in his phrasing and attack. At times, he seemed to communicate directly with the players around him, leaning in and playing like a chamber musician, so much so that it seemed he was co-conductor with Steinberg.