Cardiff. St Davi’s Hall, Sarturday 11 October 1997
As in last week's concert by the ÂÂÑ Now, this concert also formed part of the Red Violin Festival. In soloist Maxim Fedotov not only were we given the reddest violin, (there was a vividly burnished glow to the varnish of this instrument), but a searingly beautiful sound in Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto. Fedotov cut an intriguing figure, positively dancing with his fiddle on stage. With his black saturnine look he could have passed easily for Paganini, a comparison with which he would evidently have been happy. His encore was Paganini's Caoriccio No. 13, the Devil's Laugh, impeccably executed.
Rian Evans
Western Mail. 13th October 1997