A Shining Performance

 

Sven Bertilsson KATRINEHOLM KURIREN 

 

 

The absolute highlight of this summer's concerts happened on Friday evening when the Russian Sergey Antonov gave his long anticipated concert at the museum at Julitagård. It was a performance that stood up to and outdid its high expectations. Sergey Antonov goes into war with music, a war of 'love'. He is full of strong emotions and an energy bigger than just the physical performance. It's more than just the sum of a bow against a string, what this consists of is hard, if not impossible, to explain. And it is just as impossible to protect yourself against the emotional force. You are pressed backwards in your chair, with a pressure like the G-force in an accelerating Formula One car. There are few musicians this talented, with this esoteric ability, being able to touch the listener so deeply and put them in another dimension. Sergey Antonov is playing with intuition, he breathes and lives in music, the instrument is a natural extension of himself. The whole first part of the concert was performed solo on the cello, an experience that is not only musically hard to beat, but full of a dense

atmosphere, sparkling with an electrified presence. In the second half we heard the Cesar Franck Sonata in A major, which brought

forward a brilliant musical partnership with Carl Pontén, and standing ovations, truly a magical moment and the absolute highlight of an already spectacular evening.