Classical Sight Readings: The well-connected virtuoso

Japanese violinist Joji Hattori is living proof that not all the top players hail from Korea, while London will soon have a chance to hear a Kurdish superstar

We're used to virtuoso fiddlers rising in the East, but strikingly few of them are Japanese. Why should this be? According to Joji Hattori, Classic FM's house violinist, the answer lies in Japan's group work ethic, and its curious attitude to talent. "What people respect is hard work. Talent is regarded as unfair," he says. As unfair, in fact, as inherited wealth; and since this gracefully laid-back young gent is blessed with a surfeit of both, his migration west - via Austria, where he feels most at home - was inevitable.

Hattori's violinist mother taught the dowager Empress of Japan; he himself plays chamber music with the present Empress, who is a keen pianist. Evgeny Kissin is another frequenter of Hattori's musical soirees; Yehudi Menuhin, whose competition was one of many Hattori won in his early twenties, is a staunch supporter from the podium. La jeunesse doree doesn't come more gilded than this.

Hattori has never been much of a practiser, but he attributes his sound to three months of daily lessons he extracted from Vladimir Spivakov by following the Russian maestro on tour round the world. "He completely changed my bow-arm technique. The American style is to twist the wrist and dig into the string to get a bigger sound. Spivakov followed the Oistrakh school, using a tighter bow, and keeping the speed and pressure as constant as possible, which makes the sound grow and grow. It's more ringing, more clean than the aggressive American sound, and you never hear the click between bow-strokes."

Then - it's amazing how often musicians resort to this - he brings out an automobile metaphor. "Their sound is like a sports car with very wide wheels, whereas mine is smooth, quiet, and elegant."

But it hasn't made him a household name. "No. And until a year ago, I really did want fame, to be up there with Joshua Bell and co. But I have come to realise that what I really want is an interesting life as a musician." This, he says, is more likely to result from leading chamber ensembles - as he has done on a highly successful Bach recording with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra - than from perfunctory gigs with big-gun conductors on the international circuit.

None the less, he seems a bit haunted by his famous coeval Joshua Bell, who is, like him, a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and whom, astonishingly, he has never met. Three years ago Decca released a record of Bell playing Kreisler favourites; last year Classic FM did the same with Hattori, and since the pieces are the same, comparisons are in order. Bell's tone, I suggest, is purer and sweeter; Hattori plays with more gusto. "That," says Hattori with a laugh, "is because he hasn't eaten as much chocolate cake as I have in Vienna." But Hattori also thinks he had an ace up his sleeve in that his pianist, Joseph Steiger, had originally recorded the works with Kreisler's friend Mischa Elman. "He brought a sense of timing which came from the old days."

On Sunday, Hattori will give a Kreisler recital at the Old Swan Hotel in Harrogate - the discreet sort of venue that he likes. Meanwhile, he's parted company with his London agent and is laying plans for a music festival in a castle outside Vienna. And yes, the owner is another of his friends.

WE'VE HEARD a great deal about the Kurds recently, but to learn about their music we have to go back to Grove. When I ring the editor of the Rough Guide to World Music to complain about his uncharacteristically sketchy coverage, he sends me a pre-publication proof of a new entry which admirably anatomises the past, present, and problematic future of Kurdish musicians everywhere. After hearing that Sivan Perwer, the Kurds' answer to Victor Jara, has found a haven in Sweden, I manage to get that rara avis on the telephone.

Perwer learned the art of ballad-singing from his father, leapt to fame as a protest singer at Ankara University, and in 1976 was forced to flee abroad. His recordings have always been dangerous contraband; the few non-political ones now on sale in Istanbul are still proscribed in Kurdish areas. He's opposed to violence, which means that he's necessarily opposed to the Kurdishpolicy of the Turkish government. He's very worried about his father and the rest of his family, who have spent the last two years suffering police harassment; the events of this past week have made their situation worse. Will he go back? "Every year I want to, but how could I?" He'd be off the plane and straight into jail.

Listening to his records (on the Global Heritage label) I can quite see why the Turkish authorities want to shut him up; he's absolutely wonderful, with a thrilling virtuosity in a huge range of styles. His next London appearance will be on 14 March, to celebrate the Kurdish new year. But he doesn't yet know the venue.

WHEN MARTIN Jones plays Isaac Albeniz's massive Iberia suite at the Purcell Room tonight, four alternative scores will be available for inspection in the foyer. Jones has decided that the published conclusions to two of the pieces - which Albeniz left unfinished - are off beam, and has composed his own endings. "I realise I'm setting myself up to be shot at, but I can't believe he would have finished them as baldly as the printed scores suggest."

To prove his point, he plays the first one through: several pages of harmonically complex music which suddenly resolve into bare octaves. Then he plays the second: a big melody that goes on for several minutes and then simply fizzles out. "You don't need to be a musician to see that the published ending doesn't fit. Now listen to the Isaac Jones version!" I do, and am convinced. This may be mild stuff compared with Anthony Payne's heroic completion of Elgar's Third, but it still warrants an accolade.