Valery Gergiev recently wowed audiences in Montreal and Toronto with his Mariinsky Orchestra. He is also music director of the London Symphony. With the LSO last month at the Barbican in London he collaborated with violinist Janine Jansen in the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Karol Szymanowski (1883-1937). To judge by this video it was a beautiful performance of a neglected masterpiece. The work was composed in 1917 when Szymanowski was 34.
Note that Gergiev appears to be using the shortest baton ever used by a major conductor. Why bother with any baton at all?
Paul E. Robinson
