Diana Tishchenko

I often buy recordings by unknown young violinists, just to take them for a test drive. My shelves are full of past violinists of whom I now have only a hazy memory. The latest serendipitous purchase was a CD by the young Ukrainian violinist, Diana Tishchenko -- her début recording, unless I am mistaken. I was attracted by the CD contents: the sonatas for violin and piano by Ravel, Enescu (number 3) and Prokofiev (number 1), plus the third sonata for solo violin by Ysaÿe. Why does everyone always present Ysaÿe's third sonata? I much prefer the first, second, and fourth.

Ms Tishchenko is my kind of girl, and her playing reminds me of Alina Ibragimova, with a superb range of pianissimos and fortissimos and first-rate sensitivity to the music. Her style of playing smacks more of Franco-Belgian than the Russian bear. All four works on the CD score highly for the violin playing, no mean achievement in four works all from the opening decades of the past century. The pianist, Zoltan Fejervari, is school of Gerald Moore rather than Yuja Wang or Alfred Cortot, but these three violin and piano sonatas are weighted towards the violin part, in any case.

I'm in the market for future recordings by Ms Tishchenko (providing they do not feature yet another rendition of the Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky or Bruch concertos). It's a tough world out there for violinists and pianists, even for those as supremely talented as Ms Tishchenko. Her début record is issued by Warner, not a company noted for interesting repertoire a little off the beaten path. I'll keep my antennae alert, since Diana Tishchenko's playing impressed me greatly.