One amazing musician playing a Mendelssohn concerto on violin AND piano

By Kyle Macdonald

Who needs an orchestra? Not Guy Braunstein (for this movement at least)

Sometimes you really want to belt out a great passage of your favourite concerto. Great! But what if it's a summer's afternoon and you don't have an orchestra immediately to hand? That's no problem for this guy.

In a frankly unbelievable video, violin and accompaniment become one, for a moment of the beautiful first movement of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto.

This talented fellow is violin virtuoso Guy Braunstein, who expertly navigates the solo and orchestral lines of the concerto's opening movement. Guy holds sustained notes on open strings while he plays the accompanying chords with his left hand, and later – when no hands are free – uses his violin's scroll to play the piano's notes.

Guy was concertmaster of the mighty Berlin Philharmonic from 2000-2013 and has worked as a soloist and Music Director of the Rolandseck festival in Germany. His next album on Pentatone is called 'Old Souls', and features great chamber music with Gili Schwarzman, Alisa Weilerstein, Amihai Grosz and Susanna Yoko Henkel.