Antje Weithaas in Brahms with a poor conductor (Revised)

To Portsmouth on 9th December 2004 (!) to hear Elisabeth Batiashvili play the Brahms violin concerto. Only, it transpires, it wasn't Batiashvili (again) but a substitute young woman of exceptional talent, but with an inferior violin; she appeared to be playing on a violin that did not respond to pressure -- forte on the E and A strings came over as being harsh. But you could have heard a pin drop during the cadenza; she really made the audience concentrate on what was being played. Her name: Antje Weithaas. The orchestra plainly did not like the conductor, Rolf Gupta (Norway). Conducting without a baton, his arms became two flippers that twitched up and down, which plainly left the exposed, high, pianissimo violins at the start of the Prelude to Lohengrin, all at sea. From grim faces all round, it seemed as if hard words had been exchanged during the interval; the conductor came on late for the second half (Schumann second symphony) and the orchestra only managed a slight smile when he tripped and nearly fell at the end of the concert. I doubt we'll be seeing him again with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.