James Ehnes to Perform Final Beethoven Sonatas

SUPPLEMENT TO THE ASPEN TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2021 VOL 31, NO. 7

Festival Focus Writer

This week, internationally renowned violinist James Ehnes returns to the Aspen Music Festival and School stage for two concerts showcasing Beethoven: a recital with pianist Andrew Armstrong on August 11, and with the Aspen Festival Orchestra and conductor Jane Glover on August 15. It’s not just audiences looking forward to these events. Says Ehnes, “Both the setting and the history of the Aspen Music Festival are incredibly inspiring. It’s a rare opportunity to make music for incredibly passionate audiences in one of the world’s most spectacular locations.”

The AMFS’s Vice President for Artistic Administration and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian says, “James Ehnes is one of the most self-effacing, friend-next-door violin stars you will ever meet. He is the loveliest, most easy-going person. Then, when he puts the violin under his chin and puts bow to string, he’s a star. He’s just a star.”

Ehnes started playing music around the age of five. With a father who was a professional musician (trumpet) and a mother who was a ballet dancer, he was surrounded by music and artists his whole young life. “It was natural for me to get involved in music,” Ehnes says. “I don’t remember why I specifically chose the violin, but it was very much my choice. I’ve always been drawn to the sound, but also to the incredible breadth of the repertoire for the violin.”

In preparation for Beethoven’s 250th birthday celebrations in 2020, Santourian asked Ehnes to survey all 10 of the composer’s violin sonatas. In this summer’s recital, Ehnes will conclude a musical endeavor that he and Armstrong—who Santourian calls “a phenomenal partner”—began in 2018. When they first began the project, the Aspen Times praised their “gold standard performances [for] technical precision and keen musical insight.”

“Beethoven is such a central figure in music; it’s a great privilege as a violinist to have so many of his greatest works for my instrument,” Ehnes says. “The program concludes with his most famous sonata of the set, the so-called ‘Kreutzer’ sonata—one of the most celebrated pieces in the entire literature.”

Armstrong and Ehnes have a long history of performing together that extends back almost 20 years. The Melbourne Recital Center described them as having “an almost telepathic connection.” The duo has recorded all of the Beethoven sonatas and “performed them extensively, so there’s a great deal of personal history with the works that I hope will come across for the audience,” Ehnes says.

On Sunday, Ehnes will perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major with the Aspen Festival Orchestra—one of his favorite pieces and quite possibly the piece he’s performed the most in his career. “As a distinction and honor in the Beethoven year, we asked him to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto,” Santourian says.

He continues, “His playing is remarkable—he has such a beautiful sound and beautiful conception of the piece. The Beethoven is by no means not a showpiece, but it is one that is complete and replete with nuance. It’s virtuosity in service of music, not virtuosity for its own sake of display. A great violinist can convey the messages invented in this music. I would say James is a great violinist and I’m thrilled that he will be here to perform this work.”

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