Violinist Josefowicz Plays Lively, Eclectic Program

The truly heartening thing about the young musicians who have been trooping through town lately is not their technical resources--a given--but their sense of adventure. Sunday afternoon, violinist Leila Josefowicz returned on the Colburn Gold Series at Zipper Hall with a bracing program full of sharp and illuminating contrasts.

In the first half, Schubert’s sprawling but featherweight B-minor Rondo, D. 985, was followed by Shostakovich’s grim and obsessive Sonata, Opus 134. Tchaikovsky’s underappreciated showpieces, the ostentatiously moody ‘Serenade melancolique” and the blithe “Valse-scherzo,” led to some remarkably earthy Gershwin in Heifetz’s arrangement of the Three Preludes and the “Short Story” that Samuel Dushkin concocted from Gershwin’s Novelettes.

The 21-year-old violinist had a different sound for each--bright and firmly pointed for Schubert, pale and weighted for Shostakovich, round and vibrant for Tchaikovsky, and gritty for Gershwin. Josefowicz dared much--the outer movements of the Sonata desolate to the point of disassociated abstraction, the outer Preludes fast and furious to the point of meltdown--but her gambles paid off in consistently compelling performances.

She was handsomely abetted at every turn by pianist John Novacek. He commands a range of tone and articulation to match hers and proved both supportive and independently creative.

Novacek also composed the second encore, a giddy, high-voltage rag called “Intoxication.” Masse-net’s much-abused Meditation from “Thais” was the first encore, here refreshed by that rarest of virtuoso resources, simplicity. The printed program ended with the burlesque variations on “Yankee Doodle” by Henry Vieuxtemps, demonstrating that Josefowicz also has a perfect tone and touch for telling musical jokes.