Nikolaj Znaider in conversation with Amihai Grosz (15 min.)

The fact that Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto should one day become one of the most famous of its kind was by no means foreseeable at the premiere in 1904; with an overtaxed soloist and an uninspired orchestra, it was a complete failure. It took top-class musicians such as Jascha Heifetz and David Oistrakh to pave the way for the work from the 1930s onwards. In October 2011 it was the turn of Nikolaj Znaider, one of the outstanding violinists of the younger generation, to take on Sibelius’s concerto. In our interval feature, Nikolaj Znaider is interviewed by Amihai Grosz, viola player with the Berliner Philharmoniker.