“TWO SOULS” = KHACHADURIAN: VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MINOR
Audiophile Audition
April 5 2013
Barber: Violin Concerto in A Minor; Adagio for Strings – Mikhail
Simonyan, v./ London Sym. Orch./ Kristjan Jarvi
Youthful violin virtuoso Mikhail Simonyan displays his affection for
two distinct characters in his musical make-up, Armenian and American,
and Kristjan Jarvi adds his own passions.
“Two Souls” = KHACHATURIAN: Violin Concerto in D Minor; BARBER: Violin
Concerto in A Minor, Op. 14; Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 – Mikhail
Simonyan, v./ London Sym. Orch./ Kristjan Jarvi – DGG B0016170-02,
70:33 [Distr. by Universal] ****:
Two souls reside, alas, within my breast, And each one from the other
would be parted.
The one holds fast, in sturdy lust for love, With clutching organs
clinging to the world; The other strongly rises from the gloom To
lofty fields of ancient heritage.
-Goethe, Faust I, Scene 2, lines 1112-1117.
Armenian violin virtuoso Mikhail Simonyan has recorded (30 May – 1 June
2011) the Khachaturian and Barber concertos to express his dual nature
that he shares with conductor Kristjan Jarvi, the latter raised as a
protege of “Uncle Aram,” the composer Khachaturian, who had befriended
father Neeme Jarvi. But since Simonyan studied with Victor Danchenko –
a famed David Oistrakh pupil – at the Curtis Institute, his own Russian
heritage has the direct benefit of the Oistrakh tradition as well as
the American temperament. Simonyan toured the United States early, age
thirteen, as soloist with the American Russian Young Artists Orchestra,
so his “divided” personality runs deep with currents of both worlds.
In order to “authenticate” his version of the 1940 Khachaturian
Concerto, Simonyan commissioned Artur Avanesov to write a new cadenza,
one “with a strong feeling of Armenian church music. . . .our deep,
ancient and unique church-music tradition. This element brings a
whole new color to the concerto.” Simonyan plays with the lightning
facility we know from both Oistrakh and Leonid Kogan in this compound
of virtuosic and eminently lyrical elements. Simonyan likes to lean
into the phrases for emotional emphasis, and the LSO supports his
singularly emotional outbursts with a panoply of colors. Conductor
Jarvi does not stint on the sudden, convulsive thrusts forward,
the often ravishing flights of fancy accompanied by strings, harp,
gurgling winds, and percussion that might remind us of rattling
sabers. The cadenza itself proves a mixed blessing, having shed
Oistrakh’s bravura contribution for a series of modal colors in the
form of broken chant-like figures whose reliance on harmonics sounds
less idiomatic than we might prefer. Sounds like an unaccompanied
sonata by Schnittke or derivative Ysaye? With the return of the
orchestra, the familiar fireworks flame up once more, and we feel
grateful for home ground, though it be “merely” virtuosic.
The songful Andante sostenuto rocks dreamy, like a variation on
Satie’s first Gymnopedie, here become a plaintive lullaby in Armenian
colors. Certainly touches of Khachaturian’s affinity for the ballet
insinuate themselves into the melodic contour, which several times
hints at the Adagio from Spartacus. Suave and polychromatic, the
last movement Allegro vivace hustles through its motions with fleet
assurance, a real joie de vivre. Simonyan loves to use a slight
rallentando at the end of phrases coupled with a subito diminuendo
to underline his poignant affection for this ceaselessly energetic
tribute to the Armenian spirit and its first purveyor, David Oistrakh.
The Barber A Minor Concerto, curiously, moves us a continent westward
spatially, but the music (1939) speaks contemporaneously with
Khachaturian, though a world of syntax away. Applying his zestful,
singing tone to the Barber, Simonyan projects the same ardor of
expression as in the Khachaturian piece, again leaning into phrases
with the effect of increasing our sense of poignant melancholy. The
LSO under Jarvi responds with lovely, transparent colors, quite
resonant and idiomatic. Lovers of the Barber Andante movement will
easily savor Simonyan and Jarvi’s sympathetic approach, rife with
the yearning sense of the American heartland that informs portions of
Knoxville, Summer of 1915. Jarvi and Simonyan deliberately choose to
slow down the otherwise frenetic pace of the final movement, Presto
in moto perpetuo, the very bravura of which had at first pronounced
the concerto unplayable. With the tympani and sudden strings in the
background, the music perhaps gains a country hoe-down character that
undaunted speed would not have revealed. The woodwinds and horns
add their portion of mustard seed to the mix, and the accumulated
energy galvanizes to a colossal peroration. The last pages play like
a martial confrontation which ends with a decisive thud.
Yet another Adagio for Strings joins a long list of slow drawn-out
readings, loving and deeply valedictory. Does anyone recall that
Barber lifted this tune from Torelli? But with recent politics of
our old nemesis in North Korea, the tragic sentiment expressed for
the film Platoon is perhaps not unwarranted.
-Gary Lemco
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