Jonathan Carney: A concertmaster steps forward

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - This week, as Baltimore Symphony concertmaster Jonathan Carney leaves his seat on the conductor’s immediate left to stand in front of the podium as soloist in Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, a famous (and true) story comes to mind.

More than 50 years ago, after Jascha Heifetz finished rehearsing with the Cleveland Orchestra, its music director, George Szell, turned around and said: “Mr. Heifetz, it’s a privilege to hear such violin playing.”

The violinist replied, “Mr. Szell, it’s your privilege to hear great violin playing week after week” — and he pointed his bow at concertmaster Josef Gingold.

But no one has ever had to tell Carney’s boss, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra music director Yuri Temirkanov, how lucky he is to have Jonathan Carney as his concertmaster.

Temirkanov, who regularly conducts the top orchestras from Tokyo to Berlin, calls the 42-year-old Carney “one of the best concertmasters in the world.

“His playing is extremely musical and technically brilliant; rhythmically, he’s as steady as a rock,” Temirkanov says. “But just as important as his musical quality is his character — he’s a born leader.”

Carney coordinates the bowing and attack of all strings in the orchestra, and he’s been Temirkanov’s point man in the conductor’s successful efforts to soften and make more beautiful, while preserving its precision, the string sound he inherited from his predecessor, former BSO music director David Zinman. And when Carney gets the chance to be the orchestra’s violin soloist, it’s almost invariably in important, but relatively neglected works. Last season he gave the BSO’s belated premiere of Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto; his performances this week of the 1940 Khachaturian are the orchestra’s first in almost 30 years, and his performance next season of Erich Korngold’s 1945 Concerto will be the orchestra’s first.

“I like to perform what I consider major works, but not things like the Sibelius, Beethoven and Brahms concertos,” Carney says. “We have the best violinists in the world coming here to play that stuff.” But Carney doesn’t need to worry about competition — just ask his boss.

At a glance

» Jonathan Carney performs Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto with the BSO at 8 p.m. today, Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.

» Venues: Strathmore Music Center, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda (tonight) and Meyerhoff Hall, 1212 Cathedral St., Baltimore (Friday, Saturday and Sunday)

» Tickets: $25 to $78

» More info: 1-877-BSO-1444 or www.bsoatstrathmore.org and 410-783-8000 or www.baltimoresymphony.org

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