The Daily Review, October 22, 2004

By STEPHANIE VON BUCHAU

As for Beethoven's Violin Concerto, it received such an original, heart-stopping performance by Midori and conductor Alan Gilbert that it might as well have been a brand new piece of music. I heard things in it I've never heard before.

Gilbert was an excellent choice as conductor

[In the Beethoven] Gilbert reduced the strings and achieved Mozartian lightness to accompany Midori's fantastic playing. Technically she does amazing things with trills, double-stopping and these perfectly pitched, ethereal high notes.

But she also has a musical imagination and, working closely with both conductor and concertmaster, incorporated moments of pure suspended bliss that had the audience audibly gasping. This was not your grandmother's heavy, lumbering Beethoven, but a composer as fresh and modern as John Adams