Prague Journal

This evening Eva and I went to an all-Beethoven concert at the Rudolfinum, featuring violin soloist Leila Josefowicz and the Czech Philharmonic orchestra. The Coriolanus overture and Symphony No. 1 were familiar to me (although I can't remember hearing a better performance), but I don't recall hearing Beethoven's Concerto in D major. The soloist, a young (not yet 30 years old) American violinist, was absolutely superb, with masterful cadenzas she composed herself, a "adventurous and almost artistically risky" endeavor, in "today's age of respect for the written score." (When Beethoven wrote the violin concerto, performing one's own cadenzas was the expected norm. )