On Monday night, Benaroya Hall served as a guest house for the English orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and their current director, 25-year-old German violin virtuoso Julia Fischer. The program was beautifully balanced with two English works from the last century serving as bookends, Benjamin Britten’s Variations for String Orchestra on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 and William Walton’s Sonata for Strings, while the heart of the program, the first and second violin concertos of Bach, was quintessentially German. The German Baroque tradition cascaded into the more contemporary music of the Brits, with Bach’s mastery of the fugue influencing both the final variation of Britten's piece, a rapid and well-written work, and Walton’s Sonata, which flirts with fugal introductions that appear only for a moment and then vanish. Fischer & Co.'s remarkably harmonious performance put to shame most of their Continental counterparts, earning them a well-deserved standing ovation not once, but several times throughout the evening. more ›