The New York Times, December 9, 2004

Embracing the Contemporary
By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

For all the accomplishments of the celebrated violinist Midori, she had not notably involved herself in contemporary music. Given this, her recital at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night, with the pianist Robert McDonald, signaled an important step.

The longest work on her program was "the wreckage of flowers: 21 Pieces After Poems and Prose of Czeslaw Milosz," a 30-minute score composed last year by Michael Hersch, who, like Midori, is 33. Giving such prominence on her program to the New York premiere of a knotty new work that she had commissioned represented a risk for Midori, for which she deserves much credit.

[...] Drawing on myriad styles and influences, Mr. Hersch always gives evidence of an interesting ear and dramatic flair. [..] Many passages are captivating: brutally astringent piano chords provoke spiraling violin flights; Bartokesque propulsive poundings alternate with timelessly sustained harmonies and lacy violin figurations. [...] Midori and Mr. McDonald held your interest with their compelling and richly colored performance.

It was effective to precede Mr. Hersch's work with Debussy's elusive Sonata for violin and piano, in which Midori's sweetly intimate tone and rhapsodic ardor found voice. There were also involving performances of Janáček's Sonata and the third and last of Brahms's Sonatas for violin and piano.