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Title: Only by Nadja!
Review: Music lovers are not ambivalent about Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. You either love her for her passion and commitment, or hate her because it appears to be histrionic. I'm definitely in the first camp. Only Nadja can play Sibelius like this.It is the most amazing recording of this concerto I know. The way she plays the second subject of the first movement alone is worth the price of the CD. There is an expression of total anguish coming through here that you'll find on no other recording. It is so easy in this piece to be blown away by how any of the top violinists play the bravura passages. It is in the slower passages that, in this recording, Ms. Salerno-Sonnenberg sets herself head and shoulders above all the rest. The adagio is one of those incredible intersections of time, soloist, orchestra, and conductor that happens but rarely, where everything is just exactly right. You just have to hear it to believe it (and you should)!
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