Festival Overview

Varna has held a summer music festival under various names since 1926. It is now probably the most distinguished festival in Bulgaria, taking advantage of the city’s informality as the country’s main seaside resort.

Director: Mario Hossen

Friday 28 June 2019

Varna City Art Gallery

Violinists
Diana Chauseva, Dalia Cholakova, Zornitsa Ilarionova, Viktoria Marinova, Lora Markova, Kai Orlinov, Viktor Vasilev, Alexander Zayranov, Boriana Zheleva

Paganini and Virtuoso Day

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The Review

The trouble with Paganini and the rest of the cohort of virtuoso violinist composers is that, after a while, a listener’s astonishment gland goes on strike. Having gone ‘wow!’ at the brilliance of the eleven and twelve year-olds, a couple of fifteen year-olds and one player of seventeen, as they rattle off Caprices as if they were tapping out a facebook message, it becomes hard to think sensibly about the music.

That is where a more experienced musician scores and so it was with twenty-eight year-old Zornitsa Ilarionova, who brought a touch of subtlety and intelligent pacing to her showpieces. She is a violinist ready for an international career.

These nine violinists, all students of the Director, Mario Hossen, showed that technical facility from a very young age is almost routine among them. They had two chances to shine – in the morning providing musical interludes between long periods of talk – an academic symposium on Paganini’s place in Italian Romanticism – and then in the evening in a chocolate box of finger-flashing spectacle.

From the audience point of view the spectacle was slightly marred by the impressive fact that many of the performers, standing on the unraised floor, were too short to be seen over the heads of the front two rows. Among this team of talent, all of whom will make fine professionals if they want to, there were some who showed signs that they can develop into serious soloists.

Lora Makova, at fifteen, understood the bel canto side of Paganini and the emotional narrative as well as the glitter of Waxman’s Carmen Fantasie. She deserves every word of praise and encouragement. At the same age Kai Orlinov showed a maturity that suggests he will makes his name in substantial concerto repertoire.

Three players not yet teenagers at the time of the concert, Dalia Cholokova, Viktor Vasilev and Diana Chausheva are prodigies who could develop into something remarkable. Time will tell but for the moment Mario Hossen is justified in being so proud of his pupils.