This is by no means an extensive list... just some of my favourite recordings by some incredible players.

I think my all-time favourite, based on personality too, is Nicola Benedetti. I love her recordings and I think she'd just lovely playing 'live'. I love her tone and her musicality above the rest - I could listen to her for hours which makes her my first choice. And it was seeing her play that made me 'borrow' Dad's violin last year and a passion began

Close second though is America's biggest female star Hilary Hahn. I think she's quite sublimely dextrous although her recordings of the Bach concertos feel rushed. She's so elfin and sweet to watch.

Favourite male player - has to be Maxim I think.... He makes virtuosity look so easy.



Who is your favourite violin/viola player and why do you like them (sorry don't know any violists for the list).

One that does not feature on the list and i like is Chloe Hanslip

I really like Rachel Barton Pine, she has great communication skills.

I also really like Itzhak Perlaman's playing and he has a warmth that comes across in interviews.




..oh and David Garrett for looking at

Ooops - I've just noticed I put Tasmin instead of Tamsin

And I meant to put Chloe Hanslip on the list too - I bought her recording of the John Adam concerto on Saturday

You're ok, it is Tasmin.

not that there aren't plenty of other brilliant violinists on that list, but what about nigel kennedy?

Nigel who?






j/k

No prizes for knowing who I voted for,

My reasons are well known I think around here.

I would just like to also make a mention of Vadim Repin (who I am going to see in Birmingham on Saturday 1st Dec, anyone else going?), and Nikolai Znaider who is also excellent and up there on my list of faves. I could list a lot more (eg Janine Jansen and Julian Rachlin, and yes you should say these two in the same breath , and Julia Fischer)



A few suggestions of viola players:

Yuri Bashmet
Kim Kashkashian
Lawrence Power
Ozcan Ulucan
Tabea Zimmerman
Pinchas Zukerman
Paul Silverthorne
Robin Ireland
Oh... and Maxim Vengerov of course (try his Walton for size)

Joshua Bell - for, ahem, non-musical reasons

Oh I've heard of Lawrence Power and Yuri Bashmet... and I also have a recording of Janine Jansen playing a viola concerto but I don't remember which one..

So I have more viola music than I realised .... *goes off to dig out all her viola recordings....*

I voted for Nicola. She's coming to Jersey next year! I'm so excited!



HK

I'm surprised there's no vote for Hilary Hahn - if I could have voted twice she would be first equal with Nicola

Hilary's made heaps of recordings and there'a a documentary been made of her 'life as a soloist' which sounds fascinating - a peek into the life of a professional who plays all over the world!!

I was going to get it as a Christmas pressie but decided I couldn't wait and it should arrive today - I can't wait and have the popcorn all ready....

The cheapest place to get it is here (very cheap for most cds etc);

http://www.play.com/Music/MusicDVD/4-/3344...;searchsource=0

I might have to get that dvd, Amazon Marketplace have it new for under £8.

I have Hilary Hahn's recording of The Lark Ascending on my laptop and listen to it a lot.

There's a Menuhin dvd that is on my shopping list first though.

Which one? (I love 'violin' DVDs)

'Menuhin, Violin of the Century'

I've just ordered it via Ebay.

Me too! I have a large poster of Josh on one of my teaching room walls. My excuse is that it inspires the small boys to play violin (get away from its girly reputation in schools), but actually it's something to gaze at when the teaching bogs me down too much.

He plays very nicely too, of course...

K.

Not sure whether anyone's interested in this anymore, but I just happened upon it and thought I'd comment. I have to say, the list given seems an odd lot of choices to me. I think I'd rate my own favourite living violinists as (in some kind of order, certainly earlier in the list): Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, Itzhak Perlman, Nigel Kennedy, Gil Shaham, James Ehnes, Pinchas Zukerman, Maxim Vengerov, Gidon Kremer, Vadim Repin, Christian Tetzlaff, Alina Ibragimova, Julia Fischer, Vasko Vassilev, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, and Boris Garlitsky. Of course, any such list is highly subjective, and certainly the last three are included entirely on the basis of a handful of excellent performances that I have been fortunate to hear live; certainly I have left out a number of excellent violinists, simply because their live performances, or less often their recordings, have made no great impression on me. However, I am willing to be somewhat dogmatic on the point that any list of contemporary classical violinists that does not include Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, and Itzhak Perlman, in some order, among the top three looks very odd indeed! I have been listening to Haendel as I write this, and I wonder whether anybody really believes that, say, Chlo? Hanslip is in any way her equal as a violinist.

Perhaps I am just too nostalgic: most of my favourite violinists (Heifetz, Szeryng, Menuhin, Milstein, Oistrakh, Stern, Grumiaux, Př?hoda) are dead.

I've heard Bell twice in London over the past few months, and on neither occasion was I really impressed. I also heard Little at last year's Proms, and again was not impressed. Shaham and Kennedy, on the other hand, both of whom I heard at last year's Proms too, stand out as two of the three finest performances I have ever heard by violinists (the third being Gitlis playing the Tchaikovsky concerto, now many years ago).

Only earlier today, as it happens, somebody was telling me that he believes that Hilary Hahn is "easily" better than Heifetz, Szeryng, and Menuhin. Does anybody agree? It sounded improbable to me.

Perlman's probably my favourite - such warmth in his playing - sublime.

I think Hilary Hahn is great too - immaculate technique. I sometimes put on a coply of her playing the grand caconne and open the windows so the neighbours'll think I've got really good all of a sudden.

@Lotti - I got the DVD as a pressie. She comes across really well - so human, and unspoiled by her success. I wanted to give her a big hug - which isn't like me!

Perlman for me. Of the ones unmentioned as yet Mutter has been a wonderful performer oer many years, has great contemporary music recordings now and would be high on my list. Zukerman and Salerno-Sonnenburg are both excellent. Hahn, Bell, Jansen and Kennedy have great moments but inconsistently for me (not the technique but the muscianship)

But no, the dead ones referred to were even better in my opinion. And of those I lean towards David Oistrakh and the less remembered Schneiderhan (whose Beethoven concerto is the go to recording for me every time).

Not forgetting James Ehnes!

I love his Bach sonatas.

It's an impossible choice, though I also love Perlman (who couldn't?), Repin, Vengerov, Gitlis....the list really goes on, doesn't it?

Perlman is godly!
I was lucky enough to sit with James Ehnes and have a bit of a chat at a masterclass

Hope he (Ehnes) gave you some good tips or were you a bit too overwhelmed to remember what he said?!

As for Perlman, I think he's in a league of his own - he is just so inspiring a player and also seems such an all-round decent man! I would always first choose his recording of anything, then perhaps listen to others afterwards.

I was indeed extremely overwhelmed He was extremely humble and laid back though!

I like lots of different violinists for different things, so it's hard to choose just one. Not on your list but also worth voting for would have been Fabio Biondi for his spirited Baroque playing, and Gidon Kremer - I absolutely adore his Bach Sonatas & Partitas.

Violists are a different matter. I am definitely a one-violist girl, and it's Lawrence Power. His playing really speaks to me. And since I went to see him play live I am totally in love.