A critic once wrote that Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto sounded “very nasty indeed … as if it were being played with a wire brush!”
How things have changed. Until relatively recently it was an outlier to the canon, but since so many of the usual suspects – the cohort of overwhelmingly and consistently brilliant younger violinists – have tackled it with such aplomb, it has achieved a sort of critical mass of success among reviews and listeners. The fact that two new recordings – with James Ehnes and Frank Peter Zimmermann – have arrived simultaneously attests to its new-found popularity.
Interestingly, Zimmermann recorded the work way back in the early 90s (at 24) with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the late Gianluigi Gelmetti. This new compilation sees him juxtaposing the Concerto (and I use the word advisedly) with Bartók’s two Rhapsodies, Martinů’s Suite concertante and Méditation.
It’s a somewhat odd compilation, at least on the face of it, with the brittle elegance of the Stravinsky, Bartók in Magyar vein and Martinů well, somewhere else again.
Zimmermann and the orchestra seem to be enjoying themselves in their ultra-alert account of the Stravinsky, in the cheerful bustle of the opening Toccata and especially the chortling bassoons. Aria 1 flows, while Aria 2 positively glows with a very un-neo-classical affection. Zimmermann’s varied tone and intonation are impeccable.
The Bartók Rhapsodies, both lasting around nine minutes, deserve to be better known and are well captured here with the cimbalom in the First and the harp and celesta in the Second clearly audible. Perhaps they lack just an extra pinch of paprika.
Two reasons for the inclusion of Martinů’s rarely heard four-movement Suite concertante (1944) may well be that the dedicatee for both it and the Stravinsky was Samuel Dushkin and because in both the first and second movements are called Toccata and Aria.
In the Martinů, the Toccata is scintillating, the Scherzo ebullient and the concluding Rondo delicious, its driving rhythms and acrobatic interplay between soloist and orchestra resulting in a piece with no dead spots (although I have to say that for me it’s not until the final movement that the work “opens out” into one of those gloriously alfresco, almost airborne melodies that define the best of Martinů’s music).
In addition to the Suite, this album features Méditation, originally part of the suite. The soloist rises into the stratosphere with a blend of aplomb and rapturous delicacy.
Composer/Title: Stravinsky. Bartók. Martinů
Works: Music for Violin and Orchestra
Performers: Frank Peter Zimmermann v, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra/Jakob Hrůša
Label: BIS BIS2657
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