That the violinist Julian Rachlin could follow a knockout concerto performance with an encore as long, demanding and fabulously intense as Ysaÿe’s single-movement Sonata No 3, without skewing the balance of the rest of the concert, gives some indication of how powerful this programme was. This was an extraordinary evening from Rachlin, the London Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä, the 27-year-old Finn already lined up to be the Concertgebouw’s next chief conductor.
Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1 is a long and gruelling play for a violinist but one that Rachlin seemed visibly to be enjoying even halfway through the finale. His deliberate, careful phrasing at the very beginning set the tone for a performance in which nothing was thrown away, not even in the most frenzied episodes, which Mäkelä drove hard and fast. In the long lines of the final movement Rachlin’s violin continued to sing out even as the orchestral sound swelled behind him; by the end he seemed unvanquishable.
