News
Trotovsek performs with Zubin Mehta and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
On 9th July 2024, Lana Trotovsek performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the legendary conductor Zubin Mehta and Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Festival Ljubljana to a great success. The concert took place in Cankarjev dom and was filmed by Paramax for Mezzo and Medici TV.
The reviews praised the concert as “A Dream Performance by Lana Trotovšek with Beethoven” (Marjan Zlobec, kritik.si) and expressed “uncommon composure and elegance by the very talented soloist, who, among other qualities, boasts phrasing and legato of the highest order” (Paolo Bullo, Operaclick)
Some excerpts from the reviews :
“Lana Trotovšek had her day and evening, one might say in a word. She exhibited all the qualities of an excellent concert performer: knowledge, musicality, a sense of beauty and purity of sound and interpretation, refined and virtuosic technique, a sense of harmony with the orchestra and conductor, incredible confidence in solo cadenzas, striving for perfectionism and balance in the entire performance, maximum concentration throughout the approximately 45-minute-long concert, calmness and depth, feminine refinement, and a more lyrical than epic feeling in emphasizing the characteristics of the entire concert, playing in the most sensitive dynamics from piano to pianissimo, very rarely mezzoforte, and only a few bars or passages forte.
We are captivated by the calm or even dignified demeanor of the soloist, whom we have known for a long time, following her playing, both solo and chamber, performing the best Slovenian violin music, novelties, and epochal concerts from music history.
Playing at home and in a hall where hundreds of world-famous musicians have performed—if we only recall Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Kleiber, Claudio Abbado, or Lorin Maazel and Riccardo Muti, among singers Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras—brings incredible challenges and concert responsibilities.
To quote a well-known saying: “There is beauty everywhere, but it is most beautiful at home,” and to transform it into: “It is difficult everywhere, but it is most difficult at home,” we quickly arrive at the victorious image of Lana Trotovšek’s concert evening.
Her interpretation of Beethoven was exquisitely delicate, lyrical, melodic, quiet, undramatic, softer than perhaps Beethoven himself intended, who indeed wrote an interpretatively open work and unfortunately did not live to experience or enjoy the beauty as it emerged in his creative imagination.
Lana Trotovšek had to first internally experience the sense of all Beethoven’s beauty, to assemble the whole from countless pieces, phrases, motifs, and melodies, to think about the challenge of two very long and technically very demanding cadenzas, interwoven with double stops and high positions, the beauty of the sound of an excellent violin from 1750, and its audibility in a large and acoustically excellent hall.
Knowledge and courage are needed, as well as the musical heritage of the family and environment that nurtures a musician from childhood until, after twenty years, they begin to mature and achieve international recognition after thirty years. There are thousands of hours of study and hard work, playing so that in the end the entire concert appears convincing, even easy or superb as something self-evident, if you dare to step onto the concert stage.
What the very short preparatory collaboration between Lana Trotovšek, Zubin Mehta, and the orchestra was like remains a quiet secret, as it was the first and only concert, and everything took place only in Ljubljana. However, the result was most triumphant for the violinist herself.
The orchestra dynamically adapted to the violinist’s playing, and Mehta very confidently balanced and maintained everything, so that the sound balance enhanced the entire interpretation. Of course, there were still solo parts of the winds, the orchestra was slightly too loud in a few passages in the third movement, overshadowing the soloist’s playing.
The soloist remained calm and dignified throughout, even when she announced the encore, naturally choosing solo Bach. This time it was the Sarabande from Partita No. 2 in D minor for solo violin.
Lana Trotovšek received thunderous applause and ovations. See you next time, looking forward to new artistic achievements.
The concert was recorded by the famous television network Mezzo, which came to Ljubljana for the third time (twice recording the Maribor ballet in Križanke).”
by Marjan Zlobec
Sanjski nastop Lane Trotovšek z Beethovnom
“Lana Trotovšek, who initially seemed rather emotional in the presence of Mehta, was, as usual, an excellent interpreter. I also believe that this piece is particularly congenial to her because the artist was able to express an intrinsic expressive passion in the numerous lyrical and cantabile passages of the piece. Of course, especially in violin concertos, the virtuosity is very exposed and evident, but even the most engaging parts in this sense were handled with uncommon composure and elegance by the very talented soloist, who, among other qualities, boasts phrasing and legato of the highest order.
Classically structured in three movements, the concerto also offers the orchestra space to emerge, and this was also the case here, with Mehta, who with prudent gestures, constructed a very soft framework upon which the woodwinds and strings wove the most precious arabesques.
Encouraged by Mehta himself, Lana Trotovšek granted a Bach encore after having garnered great personal success.”
by Paolo Bullo (Operaclick)