SÜDWEST PRESSE, 11.06.2004 (Jürgen Kanold):

KARAJAN MEMORIAL CONCERT /
Tchaikovsky pure

Onwards into battle!

A wonderful, young pianist from Belgrade who had been invited by the Vienna Karajan Centrum, played at the CCU (Congress Centre Ulm), participating with the Philharmonic Orchestra in the Karajan Memorial Concert during the Danube Festival. Anika Vavic performed brilliantly in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

So this 4th Herbert von Karajan Memorial Concert was an evening consisting purely of works by Tchaikovsky at the well-attended Congress Centre. It may truly be said that all musical facets of the composer were taken into account. Thus it depends on the soloist whether the notorious Piano Concerto in B minor is received solely as a virtuoso piece for those tigers on the ivory and ebony keys.

Belgrade born Anika Vavic, however, performed free of inhibition or mannerism – unspectacularly in the best sense of the word – and doing so provided musical tension at the highest degree. The Serbian pianist who, following the recommendation of the Vienna Musikverein, belongs to the musicians of the ‘Rising Stars’ cycle and is currently touring the most celebrated concert houses of the world, has the suitable tone for all musical settings and the appropriately differentiated touch in her repertoire.

Well of course she can also show her paws to rip open the so famous first movement with hammering chords, but such virtuosity is never performed for its own sake. Everything is well-deliberated and musically proved. Wonderful the way Anika Vavic played the cadenza of the first movement as a solo-rhapsody. And finally this piano concerto was an experience because James Allen Gähres and the Philharmonic Orchestra quite obviously met on the same frequency.

[ original article ] [ illustration ]