Joseph Previte writes about a recent recital featuring Midori and Robert
McDonald.

The duo played the same program (Mozart K.  526, Corigliano Sonata,
Brahms Op. 78, Stravinsky-Dushkin Pastorale and Ravel Tzigane) this past
Tuesday night to close this season's Artist Series at Wheaton College.
On the whole, I have to agree with Joseph's admiring and perceptive
comments.  Although I did quite a bit of work as an accompanist of
Juilliard Pre-College violinists at a time when Midori was the 9-year-old
rumored to be playing the Bartok Concerto, this was my first encounter with
her in live performance.  She is most emphatically not a has-been child
prodigy with standard conservatory ideas about how to play a constricted
repertoire.  (Do the players of any other instrument stick so resolutely
to programming such a small number of the same old recital pieces? When I
compare violinists' programs to pianists' programs on brochures from the
Ravinia Rising Stars series, I seriously wonder.) She and Robert McDonald
chose an interesting program, and played it with conviction and
thoughtfulness.  The Mozart truly set the tone for the evening;
modern-instrument Mozart playing though it was, it was still Mozart playing
colored by current concerns about style and performance practice.  It was
lively, articulate, and thoroughly enjoyable collaboration between the two
artists.  Though I have known of it for a while, I had never before heard
the Corigliano Sonata.  Very simply, it's a dazzler, and was dazzlingly
played.  Joseph referred to Midori's relatively small sound, which was
challenged by McDonald's robust, deeply intelligent pianism on a Steinway
with lid fully raised.  Bob, who I know slightly from Juilliard days, is
no wallflower of an acoompanist, but I never had the feeling that he was
willfully or ignorantly getting in Midori's way.  (I'll admit that I wanted
him to be a bit more in the background for some of the more pyrotechnic
moments of "Tzigane.") On the contrary, I sensed that she was deliberately
playing with as wide a dynamic range as possible, often going for color
more than audibility.  (Her bow control, particularly at the end of the
second movement of the Corigliano, was nothing short of stunning.) As a
piece, the Corigliano speaks strongly and vividly, making me respect the
composer's individual voice more than I have in encounters with fascinating
though cameleonesque works like "The Ghosts of Versailles." The Brahms
was lovely, though to my ears not as convincing as the first half of
the program.  (Speaking personally, I find the Op.  78 to be a terribly
slippery piece, both technically and interpretively.) Perhaps because it
was a Tuesday night, there were no encores.  As in Little Rock, both Midori
and Bob were gracious to well-wishers backstage.  I spent my time catching
up with Bob, and didn't get to meet Midori, who told my violinist colleague
that she's in the process of finishing a degree in psychology -- yet
another sign that she's no mere aging prodigy.  All in all, a refreshing
and heartening evening.

DPHorn, fiddling around on his Mac.