A Debut of Note: Himari

by Maureen Buja  October 7th, 2026

The young Japanese violinist Himari (b. 2011 as Himari Yoshimura) made her American concert debut with Henryk Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor with the Santa Fe Symphony in 2023, aged 11, and then made her European debut with the work in 2025, age 13. That debut with the Berlin Philharmonic is captured on her debut recording on Decca Classics, appropriately called Debut.

Himari © himari-info.com

Himari started her violin study at age 3, working with Koichiro Harada and Machie Oguri. She made her debut with a professional orchestra at age 6, and at age 11 she was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ida Kavafian. At age 13, she signed an exclusive contract with Decca Classics, becoming the label’s youngest female artist.

In competition, Himari has been awarded grand prizes at the Arthur Grumiaux Competition in Belgium (2019) and the International Competition for Young Violinists in Honour of Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawski, Lublin, Poland (2021), as well as the 26th Andrea Postacchini International Violin Competition in Italy and the Kogan International Violin Competition in Belgium. She plays the 1717 ‘Hamma’ Stradivari on loan from Mr Yusaku Maezawa. Her bow is on loan from the Munetsugu Collection.

Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880) wrote his first violin concerto in 1851 while on tour in Russia with his brother. After returning to give concerts in Leipzig, Paris, and London, he returned to Russia in 1860 at the invitation of Anton Rubinstein. He spent the next 12 years there, variously as solo violinist to the Tsar, leader of the opera Orchestra, and professor of violin at Rubinstein’s conservatory. When he returned to his touring career in 1872, he extended his travels to North America with Rubinstein. When he returned to Europe in 1875, he was appointed professor of violin at the Brussels Conservatory. His health was increasingly frail, and he had to leave the stage during a performance of his Violin Concerto No. 2 in Berlin. Joseph Joachim was in the audience and took his place on stage, replacing the concerto with a performance of the Bach Chaconne on Wieniawski’s violin. Despite this setback, Wieniawski continued his tour out of financial need, but he was often forced to leave the stage, unable to perform. Wieniawski died on 31 March 1880 in the house of Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.

In the first movement, after a first subject in the clarinet and a more lyrical second subject, the violin enters in a technically demanding solo entry in 10ths. The first subject follows, played only on the G string. The rest of the movement includes a brief cadenza, followed by a lyrical passage that gives the violinist a chance to display technique, complete with triple-stopped chords and difficult but dazzling arpeggios. The final coda brings back the first subject.

Henryk Wieniawski: Violin Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 14 – I. Allegro moderato

Himari plays with authority and assurance, and even her own teacher remarks on her maturity: ‘If you’re listening to Himari and you close your eyes, you wouldn’t realise her age. Inside Himari, there is an older person and a wise musician… she’s immensely talented.’

After this brilliant orchestra debut, Himari fills the rest of the album with recital material of the highest quality, including Frédéric Chopin’s Nocturne No. 16 in E-Flat Major, Op. 55, No. 2 (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Leopold Godowsky’s Triakontameron: XI. Alt Wien (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz); Jean Sibelius’ Mazurka, Op. 81, No. 1; and Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 in C sharp minor (transcribed by Nathan Milstein). These are works by the virtuosos of their day, and even Sibelius’ Mazurka is technically demanding, with a cadenza-like opening, double stopping, and huge leaps in the melodic line, requiring a virtuoso hand.

She closes the album with more Henryk Wieniawski, with his Fantasia on Themes from Gounod’s ‘Faust’, Op. 20.

With its mix of orchestral and recital material, Himari’s debut recording gives us an exceptional view of her skills. Sometimes, as happens on live recordings, her leaps may fall a hair short, but that’s the excitement of live performance. In the piano and violin works, where Chelsea Wang, who made her own orchestral debut at age 6, ably accompanies her, we have a more traditional format. Still, again, Himari’s choice of works distinguishes her. In Wieniawski’s Faust Fantasia, she has the vision to create a coherent storyline amid all the virtuoso fireworks.

Himari: Debut (Wieniawski, Chopin, Sibelius, and Godowsky)

Himari, violin; Berlin Philharmonic with Sebastian Weigle, conductor; Chelsea Wang, piano
Decca Classics 00028948722099
Release date: 25 September 2026

A Fantasy About a Fantasia: Henry Purcell and Elliott Carter

 by Maureen Buja  May 7th, 2021

Henry Purcell

In the summer of 1680, Henry Purcell (1659-1695) started to experiment with an older musical form, the fantasia. The basic structure of a fantasia is the construction of several musical phrases, or points, each of which is given a contrapuntal working out before going on to the next one. Purcell would have been familiar with these from Matthew Locke’s (c. 1621-1677) fantasia sets of a generation earlier. Purcell brought his own ideas to the form, making each point full of theatrical gestures, and adding in chromaticism and dissonance.

In Purcell’s Fantazia Upon One Note, his only fantasia for 5 parts, one instrument, the tenor viol, plays only one note, middle C. Around this still point, the other instruments play their parts, from the gentle opening to the triumphal ending. It’s only in the middle, in a minor choral section, that the tenor viol has a brief ‘solo’ appearance.  

Viols as illustrated in Michael Praetorius: Syntagma musicum: Vol. II De Organographia: Appendix: Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia (1620)

The tenor viol part is difficult to hear on a recording but is much easier to see in a performance.

American composer Elliott Carter (1908-2012) felt that the dramatic nature of Purcell’s work, ‘a repeated, tolling, bell-like note sounding through musical episodes of contrasting character,’ was seldom achieved in performance. The tenor viol’s middle C was lost in the musical mix. His arrangement of the Purcell fantasia was designed to bring out that lost middle C and by moving it to a brass ensemble, could change the dramatic possibilities of the work.

Elliott Carter

The work was created in 1974 as ‘A Christmas Present for the American Brass Quintet,’ as the dedication reads.

It is not known why Purcell took up the writing of fantasias in 1680, but in doing so, he left us a wonderful farewell gift to a musical style that was quickly fading. His 1680 works are considered the last music written for the viol before its modern revival starting in the mid–20th century with England’s Viola da Gamba Society, founded in 1948.

Musicians and Artists: Stravinsky and Benois

 by Maureen Buja  January 31st, 2021

Alexandre Benois: Self-Portrait (1893)

Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes hit Europe like a storm: no one had ever seen ballet taken to this level. Founded in 1909 by Diaghilev and lasting 20 years, the Ballet was based in Paris and traveled around Europe and to North and South America. Because of the Russian Revolution, the Ballets Russes never played in Russia. Its productions continue to be staged today.

Stravsinky and Nijinsky
in his Petrushka costume

Diaghilev commissioned scores from the young composers of the day, including Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy (Jeux, Images (1913)), Sergei Prokofiev (Chout (1921) and other), Erik Satie (Parade (1917)), and Maurice Ravel (Daphnis et Chloé (1909)) and commissioned sets from the young artists of the day, including Vasily Kandinsky, Alexandre Benois, Pablo Picasso (Parade (1917)), and Henri Matisse (Le Chant du rossignol (1920)), and had costumes from Léon Bakst (Carnaval (1910), Spectre de la rose (1922), and others) and Coco Chanel (Le Train bleu (1924), Orphée, Oedipe Roi).

Benois: Petrushka Costume for Nijinsky (1911)

Alexandre Benois (1870-1960) was a Russian artist and so much more. He was an art critic, a historian, and a designer for the Ballets Russes. His whole family were in the arts: his father an architect, his brothers were a painter and an architect and his sister married the composer Nikolai Tcherepnin. In 1901, he was scenic director of the Mariinksy Theatre in St. Petersburg and moved to Paris in 1905. He started working with Diaghilev from the very beginning, having known him in Russia in the last years of the 19th century.

In 1911, Benois designed what was considered the highlight of his work with the Ballets Russes: the sets and costumes for Stravinsky’s Petrushka.

Benois: Petrushka’s Cell (1911)

Petrushka, a puppet, falls in love with the Ballerina, who is also loved by the more powerful Moor. The puppet tradition in Russia picked up by Benois was based on his own memories of seeing the Petruska story told in puppet theatres in the street. In the street theatres, Petrushka has a red dress, a red hat, and, often, a red nose. In Benois’ designs, the red is retained for Petrushka’s cuffs, the edge of his ruff and hat, and in the design of his trousers.

Petrushka’s room depicts mountain, clouds, and a starry night – on the wall hangs a portrait of the Magician (his master who brought him to life) and a devil guards the door to prevent him leaving.

His rival, the Moor, has a much more lavish layout, calling to mind the designs by Léon Bakst for the Ballets Russes. Instead of the lonely images in Petrushka’s world, fruits and flowers and animals populate this world.

I

Benois: The Moor’s Cell (1911)

The tragic story comes to its end, with the Moor killing his rival, but Petrushka seems to reappear, thumbing his nose at his rival and perhaps returning as a ghost to haunt him.

Nijinsky as Petrushka (1911)

With Nijinsky in the role of the doomed Petrushka, the ballet was a success and became one of the most popular of the Ballets Russes productions. Even now, it is generally performed using both the original costume designs and sets, as well as Fokine’s choreography.

In writing for Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet troupe, Stravinsky was transformed from an innovative Russian composer to a cutting-edge international composer. His music for the Nijinsky-choreographed The Rite of Spring two years later was the shock performance of the year and he continued each year with works that continue to catch our ear today.

Symphonic Fish

 by Maureen Buja  March 14th, 2026

Dutch trombonist, conductor, and composer Johan de Meij (b. 1953) made his international name in 1988 with his first symphony, The Lord of the Rings. Since then, he had gone on to become a noted composer for wind orchestra.

Johan de Meij

In his 1991 work Aquarium, Meij looks into the waters for both common and exotic sea creatures.

He opens with a trio of fish, starting with many people’s first Aquarium fish: the Neon Tetra. A freshwater fish from the streams of the Amazon basin in South America, its brightly coloured stripes make it visible to other tetra, particularly as one of its habitats is the blackwater streams, which are quite acidic. The fish has a light-blue back, a silver-white abdomen and two stripes: one iridescent blue that runs over its back and an iridescent red stripe that runs along its sides. The fish is partially transparent. At night, the blue and red stripes become grey or black as it rests; the colours return in the morning. This response to lighting conditions helps it survive.

Neon Tetra, Paracheirodon innesi (Photo by Holger Krisp)

The Neon Tetra theme becomes a motive throughout all three movements.

The Electric Eel doesn’t get a theme but rather a rhythm. In some public aquariums, they hook up a speaker to the water around the electric eel so visitors can hear its pulses.

Electric Eel (Photo by David Liittschwager)

The Angelfish is represented with cluster chords as though the body decorations on the fish have become the score.

Angelfish

The second movement starts off with one of the most familiar of sea creatures, the sea horse. Its head and neck resemble those of a horse, aided by the fact that the sea horse is usually upright. It has a curled tail that helps it hold onto vegetation. The earliest sea horses were found in Italy, in the Marecchia River. A kind of pipefish, the sea horse is thought to have become its own species when tectonic events resulted in large bodies of shallow water. The shallow water and sunlight encouraged the growth of seagrass that the sea horse holds with its prehensile tail to hold itself upright.

Sea Horse (photo by Florin Dumitrescu)

The Zebrafish is another freshwater fish, this time from South Asia, found in the water of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan. The fish has five uniform blue stripes on the side of its body and is a popular fish in home aquariums.

Zebrafish (photo by Yael Noy)

At the beginning, the seahorse peeks out from its seagrass home and starts to talk with the zebrafish. As the movement progresses, the unison zebrafish theme gets more and more menacing.

The final movement is about guppies. They come from South America’s northeast corner, and are many home aquariums’ first fish.

Guppy, Poecilia reticulata (photo by Per Harald Olsen)

Unlike the other fish in Aquarium, guppies come in several different colours and styles, in the picture below, are from the top right, the ribbon mosaic RREA, mosaic chilli, double sword, orange pintail, Moscow red RREA, and cobra snakeskin (top left).

Varieties of guppies (photo by Melanochromis)

The final movement emulates most people’s experience with guppies. It starts with only two instruments (trumpet and xylophone), but then, as more guppies appear, more instruments pile in. The Guppy theme is presented in the piccolo and alto saxophone. As the movement progresses, themes from the earlier themes ‘swim’ by as well. 

Meij has managed to give us individual themes or rhythms for each animal represented and has given them to us with a kind of swinging nautical feel. In the full symphonic sound, this is a far cry from Baby Shark!

Making Fun of the Master Richard Wagner in Caricature

 by Maureen Buja  June 24th, 2023

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a revolutionary in German music and in opera. For opera-goers, the advent of Wagner onto their stages was cause for comment, particularly in the caricature sections. In images, the cartoonists could take aim at all they saw as false or inflated in the music and person of the composer.

The French caricaturist André Gill (1840–1865) had a style that depicted enlarged heads on tiny bodies. He drew Wagner determinedly breaking a listener’s ear by hammering a note into place.

Gill: Wagner, 1868

8 years later, Gill took on “The tetralogist” Wagner by showing him relentlessly banging a pot and being served apple cider by a monkey. Wagner, in the caption, dismisses the French “The French are a people of monkeys” and the cartoonist saying that the ape people now have the art of the scream, which will easily compete with Wagner. Wagner was quoting Voltaire, who called the French a mix of monkeys and tigers (Wagner: Art and Politics, 1868), but the French quickly took the quote out of context.

Gill: Le Tétralogue Wagner, 1876 (L’Eclipse, September)

Another caricature helpfully shows how to create a shadow image of Wagner, although it does require holding your hands in seemingly impossible positions (and the note that the beard should be made with a piece of folded paper).

Trewey: Silhouette of Wagner, 1877

Kreutzburger: Silhouette de Wagner (after Trewey), ca. 1877

The overwhelming use of brass and percussion in Wagner’s scores led to several caricatures including this one showing Wagner beating his own drum for Tannhäuser.

Blass: Wagner, inventor of the bass drum with musical grapeshot, indulging in his favorite exercise

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) depicts an audience that has been forced ‘par ordre’ to listen to an hour of Wagner. They slouch, they fall asleep, they endure, battered by a hail of notes, wielded by an authoritative hand.

Daumier: A Munich. Après une heure de Wagner par ordre!!, 1868 (Le Charivari, July 8, 1868)

The downside of this is a complaint that Sleep (Morpheus) brings to Zeus – carrying his sack of poppies on his back, he’s out of job, replaced by Wagner.

Cham: Morpheus is out of a job, 1861

Another caricature, after the death of Wagner, shows him arriving in heaven and thanking the angels for the receptions but complaining that there aren’t enough trumpets and drums – you’ll never get a production without them!

Wagner in Heaven, 1883

In a caricature after the death of Wagner, the theatre director Pierre Gailhard (1848–1918), director of the Paris Opera, and the French conductor Charles Lamoureux (1834–1899) bombarded Paris in 1891 with Wagner. They are dressed in ‘the livery of Wagner’, with ‘W’ embroidered everywhere. Wagner is depicted between the two mighty horns as a ghostly shadow. Written under the cannon is ‘Ritt’, director of the Paris Opera, for whom Gailhard worked.

B. Moloch: The New Siege of Paris in 1891

In another depiction of the Opera, Pierre Gailhard and Eugène Ritt (1817–1898) are shown on the peak of the Paris Opera holding a drum and a trombone (more brass and percussion!). Between them, holding a two-handed saw is Wagner. This caricature followed the premiere of Lohengrin at the Opèra.

Gilbert-Martin: Le Nouveau Couronnment de l’Opéra, 1891 (Le Don Quichotte, vol. 18, no. 399)

Another assault with brass, but this time depicting the field of battle as Bayreuth. Wagner is shown with the support of Hans Richter, in the foreground, the conductor at Bayreuth. Between Wagner and Liszt on the top left is Cosima Wagner. Below Wagner is Wilhelm Jahn, director of the Vienna State Opera, and the bass-baritone Emil Scaria, who sang in the premiere of Parsifal. We also have the dragon from Siegfried and Brunnhilde’s horse Grane just above Cosima. Other personalities down the left side include the German Emperor Louis II, the composer Johann von Herbeck, the Rhinemaiden Lili Lehman, actor Josef Lewinsky, and pianist Anton Rubinstein.

Klie: The Battle of Bayreuth, 1876

We’ll close with some of the greatest entry music of all time.

Making Fun of the Master Richard Wagner in Caricature

 by Maureen Buja  June 24th, 2023

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a revolutionary in German music and in opera. For opera-goers, the advent of Wagner onto their stages was cause for comment, particularly in the caricature sections. In images, the cartoonists could take aim at all they saw as false or inflated in the music and person of the composer.

The French caricaturist André Gill (1840–1865) had a style that depicted enlarged heads on tiny bodies. He drew Wagner determinedly breaking a listener’s ear by hammering a note into place.

Gill: Wagner, 1868

8 years later, Gill took on “The tetralogist” Wagner by showing him relentlessly banging a pot and being served apple cider by a monkey. Wagner, in the caption, dismisses the French “The French are a people of monkeys” and the cartoonist saying that the ape people now have the art of the scream, which will easily compete with Wagner. Wagner was quoting Voltaire, who called the French a mix of monkeys and tigers (Wagner: Art and Politics, 1868), but the French quickly took the quote out of context.

Gill: Le Tétralogue Wagner, 1876 (L’Eclipse, September)

Another caricature helpfully shows how to create a shadow image of Wagner, although it does require holding your hands in seemingly impossible positions (and the note that the beard should be made with a piece of folded paper).

Trewey: Silhouette of Wagner, 1877

Kreutzburger: Silhouette de Wagner (after Trewey), ca. 1877

The overwhelming use of brass and percussion in Wagner’s scores led to several caricatures including this one showing Wagner beating his own drum for Tannhäuser.

Blass: Wagner, inventor of the bass drum with musical grapeshot, indulging in his favorite exercise

Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) depicts an audience that has been forced ‘par ordre’ to listen to an hour of Wagner. They slouch, they fall asleep, they endure, battered by a hail of notes, wielded by an authoritative hand.

Daumier: A Munich. Après une heure de Wagner par ordre!!, 1868 (Le Charivari, July 8, 1868)

The downside of this is a complaint that Sleep (Morpheus) brings to Zeus – carrying his sack of poppies on his back, he’s out of job, replaced by Wagner.

Cham: Morpheus is out of a job, 1861

Another caricature, after the death of Wagner, shows him arriving in heaven and thanking the angels for the receptions but complaining that there aren’t enough trumpets and drums – you’ll never get a production without them!

Wagner in Heaven, 1883

In a caricature after the death of Wagner, the theatre director Pierre Gailhard (1848–1918), director of the Paris Opera, and the French conductor Charles Lamoureux (1834–1899) bombarded Paris in 1891 with Wagner. They are dressed in ‘the livery of Wagner’, with ‘W’ embroidered everywhere. Wagner is depicted between the two mighty horns as a ghostly shadow. Written under the cannon is ‘Ritt’, director of the Paris Opera, for whom Gailhard worked.

B. Moloch: The New Siege of Paris in 1891

In another depiction of the Opera, Pierre Gailhard and Eugène Ritt (1817–1898) are shown on the peak of the Paris Opera holding a drum and a trombone (more brass and percussion!). Between them, holding a two-handed saw is Wagner. This caricature followed the premiere of Lohengrin at the Opèra.

Gilbert-Martin: Le Nouveau Couronnment de l’Opéra, 1891 (Le Don Quichotte, vol. 18, no. 399)

Another assault with brass, but this time depicting the field of battle as Bayreuth. Wagner is shown with the support of Hans Richter, in the foreground, the conductor at Bayreuth. Between Wagner and Liszt on the top left is Cosima Wagner. Below Wagner is Wilhelm Jahn, director of the Vienna State Opera, and the bass-baritone Emil Scaria, who sang in the premiere of Parsifal. We also have the dragon from Siegfried and Brunnhilde’s horse Grane just above Cosima. Other personalities down the left side include the German Emperor Louis II, the composer Johann von Herbeck, the Rhinemaiden Lili Lehman, actor Josef Lewinsky, and pianist Anton Rubinstein.

Klie: The Battle of Bayreuth, 1876

We’ll close with some of the greatest entry music of all time.