Vengerov

Went to the Royal Concert Hall tonight to see Maxim Vengerov, who's probably one of the top 10 violin soloists today. I'm a bit of a Russophile when it comes to classical music, so I'd say he was top 3.

Having said that, he was nursing a hand injury tonight, so we only got one of the Mozart violin concertos promised. But his conducting of the Shostakovich C Minor Chamber Symphony was very good. He dedicated this performance to his mentor, the great cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who died last week.

None of my surreptitious shots of the stage turned out, but the panorama of the hall stitched quite well.