Menuhin? - no women, you in!

My heavy singing engagements (we had a couple of gigs!) preventing me from witnessing Midori's rendering of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto with our own very wonderful Colorado Symphony, it suddenly stuck me that, in contrast to the even quite recent past, the world of the virtuoso violinist is weighty with women. The days of Menuhin, Stern, and Oistrakh have gone - now we have Mutter, Hahn and Josefowicz. And these ladies can play - Hahn's rendering of the Bach concertos is spellbinding.

Ah, I hear you say, they got there on looks as much as anything. Then I call my next witness, m'lud - Julia Fischer. If anyone going to get there on looks it's Julia. So let's check credentials: winner of Menuhin competition at 12 (famed critic Edward Greenfield remarking: "Not only did she win outright in the junior category, she was manifestly more inspired than anyone in the senior category."), standing ovations at Carnegie Hall, played with most of our leading conductors, and her recording of the Brahms (and how many versions of that are there?) was rated with the benchmark by BBC Music magazine. And she's but 24. I rest m'case!

So we can say without fear of falsity, women rule the world of the violin, despite looks! So I shall look forward indeed to Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg's Shostokovich in January!