Midori, Antoine Lederlin and Jonathan Biss, Wigmore Hall, London, review: Midori is an evergreen talent

Antoine Lederlin and Jonathan Biss join the Japanese-American violinist Midori in a selection of piano trios

One-time child prodigy Midori has battled adversity to become a global star and UN Messenger for Peace: her sound is as sweet and pure as ever (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)

Midori is now 46, but the story of her childhood emergence still burns bright in the memory. Daughter of a violinist who yielded to her request for a violin by giving her a miniature one for her third birthday, she gave her first public performance in Osaka at six. Managing to break two strings in the course of an acclaimed performance with Leonard Bernstein, she established herself as a global star at 14.

She was pushed much too hard, and consequently suffered from anorexia and depression: her personally therapeutic response to this, at 21, was to create Midori and Friends, a charity designed to bring music education to children in impoverished American and Japanese communities, with a particular focus on the disabled; she’s since launched several other charities. She’s won just about every musical prize going, as well as a being named a UN Messenger for Peace.

It was a pleasure to set aside this historical baggage and simply be reminded of her artistry, though – typically – she had set up this Wigmore concert to showcase other talents as much as her own. Enter cellist Antoine Lederlin, member of the Belcea Quartet, and pianist Jonathan Biss, the leading Beethovenist of his thirtysomething generation. The repertoire too was designed for equality: trios by Beethoven, Schumann, and Dvorak in which Lederlin’s warm sound and Biss’s forceful muscularity came to the fore. Midori’s tone was, as ever, sweet and pure; an evergreen talent.