Leila Josefowicz ticked all the boxes in this stunning recital: highly imaginative curation; musicality in every note; and a winning ability to communicate to the Wigmore Hall audience. The five works on offer cleverly showcased her wide range of expressive abilities and technical prowess. She balanced the new or rarely heard with works that were familiar and reassuring, but in unusual arrangements.
Kicking off with the latter, Sibelius' Valse triste is something of a cliché in normal circumstances, but in this arrangement for violin and piano, sounding leaner and more passionately dark as it progressed. Josefowicz certainly made the most of its ambivalent mood and with her attentive accompanist, John Novacek, sensitive to her every nuance.
The duo followed this with the Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata no. 1 in F minor, one of the composer's toughest works, but also one of his greatest. Written over a number of years just before and during World War 2, it has passages which must have seriously put the composer at risk of being sent to Siberia, as well as some melting top drawer Prokofiev melodies. Josefowicz gave it her all, fittingly theatrical both in her playing and in her stage presence. The second movement Allegro brusco has some of most aggressive music Prokofiev had written since his rabble-rousing days in the early 1920s. Josefowicz threw herself into these slashing chords in as if her life depended on it; likewise, in the wild dance of the fourth movement. The magical moments at the end of the first and fourth movements and throughout the third, were brought off with equal amounts of delicacy and grace, the partnership between the duo being particularly intimate here. A devastating performance which left you in no doubt of the stature of this sonata.