Violin memories

This morning's email from The New Yorker advises me that "the superstar violinist Leila Josefowicz" will be performing this week.

"Leila Josefowicz?" I asked myself, "I heard her perform at the Kennedy Center half a dozen years ago, didn't I?  Isn't she the pretty blonde who annoyed the devil out of me with all her twisting and squirming and fidgeting all the way through a not-very-interesting NSO performance of -- what was it -- a Mozart concerto?" 

She's a superstar?  Or, in the words of The Telegraph, "one of the leading American violinists of her generation"?

"I'll have to look back in EineKleineBlog to see if she really is who I think she is."

No luck.  I can't find a mention of her anywhere in the blog.  Maybe I misspelled Josefowicz? Nope.  Even a search for "violinist" fails to turn her up.

No matter;  I'm sure she's the woman I think she is.  And I'm sure that my opinion of her (or of "superstar") is quite different from that of the rest of the world.

But the search for "violinist" does turn up something interesting, my rave review of a Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg performance:

Standing ovations should be reserved for performances that are in some way life changing -- or at the very least eye-opening . . . We absolutely should not stand and clap for everybody who manages to wangle a gig at the concert hall.

That said, last night I jumped to my feet and clapped.

And shouted.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg's performance of Shostakovich's violin concerto with the NSO at the Kennedy Center was astounding! 

What's interesting -- and disheartening -- about this is that I have virtually no memory of the event. This "astounding" "eye opening," "life changing" performance that got me out of my seat shouting (and believe me, I'm definitely not a shouter) is lost in the mists of memory.  Just as lost as if it had never occurred.  How depressing.