Janine Jansen was born in the Netherlands, and first picked up a violin at the age of six. She comes from a family full of musicians. And she recalls that ‘all my first memories are musical – I remember nothing else. My grandfather conducted a church choir, my father was his organist and they used to give concerts every Saturday afternoon, so I was in church a great deal of the time. I was singing in the choir before I could read, standing next to my mum.’
Janine has had an extremely enviable career, having had opportunities to work with the world’s greatest orchestras (including the New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Berliner Philharmoniker) and with conductors Sir Mark Elder, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Harding and Sir Antonio Pappano.
The Sibelius violin concerto was first performed in 1904 before revisions were made by the composer in 1905. This became the version that is commonly performed today. However, as noted by the publisher Robert Lienau Musikverlag, ‘the early version from 1904 did survive but previously could only be made public on rare occasions’.
The early version of the violin concerto is generally classified as more dramatic than the revised version; It exerts a peculiar charm and provides, together with the revised version of 1905, a unique insight into the workings of the composer.
Here is Ms. Jansen to show us why the public came to love this music:
