Marie Cantagrill plays Tchaikovsky

It transpires that I have around 70 different recordings of Tchaikovsky's violin concerto on my shelves. Not my favourite concerto, but a great vehicle for violin playing. My latest recording comes from Marie Cantagrill (born 1979), a violinist I hold in great esteem. There are musicians -- such as Heifetz or Milstein -- who worked out over time how to play a piece and they played the music (superbly) with their heads in charge. Then there are violinists such as Cantagrill (or Ginette Neveu) who play superbly, but with the heart leading the head. I greatly admired Cantagrill's playing in Bach and Brahms, and I greatly admire it here. Technically, she is right on top (of course). She plays with an impressive range of dynamics, from ff to pp. Like her late compatriot, Ginette Neveu, she puts her whole heart into what she is playing.

I have no idea where the recording comes from, or when it was made; someone discovered it somewhere on the Web (Spotify?) and copied it to a friend who copied it to me. The excellent orchestra is the Budapest Concert Orchestra, and the conductor Tamas Gal. The recording is excellent, with an ideal balance between soloist and orchestra. My admiration for the playing of Marie Cantagrill was already high after her recordings of the Bach solo works, and of the three Brahms sonatas for violin and piano. With this Tchaikovsky recording, she confirms my feeling that she is a violinist to whom I will always listen with pleasure. I hope that, some day, someone will discover a recording of her playing the Beethoven violin concerto. That would suit her playing-from-the-heart way with music.