Who is your favorite violinist and why?

Another question Quora I answered: Who is your favorite violinist and why?

It is hard to say I have a favorite violinist. I have so many favorite violinists I admire. There are so many I like the way they play, their interpretations of the music they play, and so on.

First of all, I want to explain what a good violinist should have to be a great violinist (in my opinion). And this is what I wrote about it in my Medium article about it:

What makes a violinist great to perform on stage with such great orchestra and such great musicians?

I think it is very personal for each individual. For me, it is the sound he or she creates with the violin. And I mean, when the violinist has a soft or a loud sound matters too. What also matters, is the interpretation of the music he/she brings into the piece.

So, a good violinist the audience will listen to is someone who understands the music very well. He/she listens to other recordings in the first place. He/she also looks at the music sheet: what are the beginning and ending in the phrases? How are different phrases being able to be one in the music? Where does the orchestra/accompany start and end? Are there difficult passages? What is the background of the music? What is the background of the composer? When did the composer write the music? And in which circumstances? Who was the violinist who premiered the violin concerto? What do we know about the musicians?

If all these questions are answered by the musician in her or his own interpretation and you like it, then I think it is a good musician!

And with all this information, I have a few favorite violinists:

1. Maxim Vengerov: I was a little kid of 8 when my sister played a CD he recorded with the violin concerto of Tschaikovsky. Since then, I am a huge fan of him. He is a Russian violinist with lots of expressions. He took a year off to learn to play the viola. I have personal experience with him too. Back in the days, there were other fans who created a fan website for him where he also answered a few questions from his fans. I also did. The website editor and I got in touched and e-mailed each other frequently. When he got 30 I went to a concert of his in London at the Royal Albert Hall. After the concert, we went to a presentation of a crafted book with personal notes from his fans which I wrote one too. And it turned out I might give that personal crafted book. I was surprised, actually in shock…
2. Janine Jansen: she is a modern Dutch violinist with authentic interpretations of the music she plays. You can say that she is a bit of an expressionist with her interpretations.
3. Kirill Troussov: I just discovered this violinist recently. I love his chill playing. I think not really expressive, but more easy-going. I love that lately.
4. Anne-Sophie Mutter: she is a German violinist. She has, in my opinion, just purity in playing music. Very little show-offs. I mean, just clean playing.

All the above are still living violinists.

And here are the violinist from the past:

1. Yehudi Menuhin
2. David Oistrakh
3. Jasja Heifetz
4. Isaac Stern

There are so many more.

I don’t know why, but I don’t have a reason why I like those old violinists, but they all have a bit of old-fashioned style.

Originally published at http://quora.com.