CLASSICAL

Alda Dizdari interview: falling in love with Elgar

This brilliant Albanian violinist has just one thing on her mind: the English composer’s Violin Concerto. By Noel Malcolm

Romantically inclined: Alda Dizdari
Romantically inclined: Alda Dizdari
PIERRE LEMOND
The Sunday Times

The nice thing about falling in love with a piece of music — as opposed to a person — is that it doesn’t make you feel possessive. On the contrary, you long for other people to love the music too. In the case of Alda Dizdari, a stunningly gifted violinist from Albania, now based in London, one such love affair has taken over her life for several years: a passion for Elgar’s Violin Concerto.

Browsing in a London shop three years ago, she bought a CD of the first recording of the concerto, by the almost self-taught violinist Albert Sammons and the conductor Henry Wood. A couple of hours later, by an uncanny coincidence, she found in another shop Wood’s copy of the score, full