Musicians of Wisconsin’s La Cross Symphony Orchestra take a bow. Photo by Samantha Casper, courtesy of La Crosse Orchestra Symphony.
In Wednesday’s (8/20) Wisconsin Public Radio, Ezra Wall writes, “Rachel Barton Pine recently thrilled Wisconsin symphony-goers with a masterful performance of Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major. The audience in attendance at the Viterbo University Fine Arts Center in La Crosse, however, might not have realized how closely connected they were to the great German composer in that moment. Pine plays a 1742 Joseph Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ violin known as ‘ex-Bazzini ex-Soldat.’… Brahms himself hand-selected the instrument to be played by one of the era’s leading violinists, Marie Soldat. ‘It’s amazing to play Brahms on an instrument that was among the first to ever perform the concerto,’ Pine said. ‘It not only does everything I could possibly imagine, but it even suggests things to me that I would have never thought of.’ Pine’s performance of the Brahms concerto is the centerpiece of an upcoming WPR Music special, ‘An Evening with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra,’ which will air statewide at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 27. Alexander Platt is the conductor and artistic director of the LSO…. Executive Director Eva Marie Restel [says], ‘This community embraces the Symphony as a critical part of our overall culture.’ ”
