YOUNG GUNS OF THE VIOLIN
By Timothy Mangan
The Orange County Register
OCRegister, CA
July 6 2007
Roundup reviews: New recordings reveal a batch of up-and-coming
virtuosos ready to step into prime time.
The days when a star violinist – a Jascha Heifetz or Isaac Stern,
a Yehudi Menuhin or Itzhak Perlman – could become a household name,
or could sell a record or sell out a concert on the basis of his or
her celebrity, are long gone. You won’t hear Maxim Vengerov on Jay
Leno, and even if you did it probably wouldn’t matter. Not that the
talent isn’t out there. To be a young, prize-winning, good-looking
violinist today means that you’ll get to make some recordings, but
they’ll be hard to sell, at least in America. The average consumer
is never going to walk into a record store and buy a recording of
the Beethoven concerto by someone he’s never heard of.
The Russian Vengerov, 32, won the Carl Flesch Competition when he
was 15 and has made a slew of high-octane recordings. He sounds a
bit like Heifetz on steroids. His latest disc, with the UBS Verbier
Festival Chamber Orchestra on EMI Classics, features a pair of Mozart
concertos and the Sinfonia Concertante, K. 364, which the violinist
also conducts. It’s a fine example of his playing, the tone of spun
silver, the phrasing of precision expressivity, the virtuosity of
poised ebullience.
In other regards, it’s probably not among his most satisfying
efforts. Vengerov made a special study of the Mozart concertos before
recording, looking into the early opera scores, studying historical
violin techniques and consulting with mezzo Cecilia Bartoli to better
understand the singing line.
The result is a little too tidy and claustrophobic, though, not to
mention too slow. The concertos are put on a pedestal here, and most
of their gamboling, tuneful merriment is missing. Every note and
phrase is a pearl, a holy gift from the master.
Vengerov’s peccadilloes are put into high relief by a recent recording
of all of the Mozart concertos by remarkable Greek violinist Leonidas
Kavakos with the Salzburg Camerata on Sony Classical. Kavakos,
winner of the Paganini and Sibelius competitions back in the ’80s
and who turns 40 this year, is a stellar technician who makes you
forget all about his technique. The music pours like cream out of
his violin. Musically, he is a warm and friendly sort, songful and
seamless in his phrasing, golden in tone.
His readings of the Mozart concertos are playful and intimate. The
bouncing rhythm of dance is never far away, and the intimacy, the
easy give-and-take of chamber music, is achieved. The concertos become
little operas-by-other-means, full of character, and characters. But
it’s not high-falutin’ or precious. Compare Vengerov’s account of
the second movement of the fourth concerto with Kavakos’. In the
Russian’s hands it becomes an aristocratic and rather stifling aria
for the Countess; in the Greek’s it is a folksy bit sung by the peasant
Zerlina – way more fun and fitting. Kavakos is further aided by Sony’s
production, which captures the proceedings in conversational close-up.
Sergey Khachatryan would appear to be another up-and-comer on the
basis of his new recording of Shostakovich’s two violin concertos
with Kurt Masur and the Orchestra National de France on the Naïve
label. Born in 1985 in Armenia (apparently no relation to composer
Aram Kachaturian), winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2005,
Khachatryan is a probing and sensitive musician. These pieces are more
soliloquies than standard concertos, the soloist not in contrast or
confrontation with the orchestra, but a protagonist in a brooding,
melancholy, nonheroic rumination.
Where many another young soloist will milk the expressive line for all
its worth, and dig aggressively into the grotesque, Khachatryan finds
the inner life of Shostakovich’s soloist/character; we’re inside his
head, thinking and feeling what he feels, not outside watching and
hearing. The result is gripping narrative. In the fast, bristling
movements, the violinist remains relatively suave and understated,
dashing about with the orchestra, not against it. Masur and the
orchestra’s patient, cerebral approach doesn’t hurt a bit, either.
Baiba Skride, born in 1981 and winner of the Queen Elisabeth in 2001,
gives a more typically extroverted account of Shostakovich’s Violin
Concerto No. 1 with Mikko Franck and the Munich Philharmonic on Sony.
This has something to do with Sony’s up-front acoustic, but the
Latvian violinist with a brilliant, clear tone just exudes more and
thus brings a little less variety to what she has to say. Still,
it is an impressive performance of this great concerto, and Franck
and company sizzle right along with her. The coupling is Janacek’s
odd and mercurial Violin Concerto, "The Wandering of a Little Soul,"
the potential solo awkwardness dashed off handily.
Munich-born (1983) violinist Julia Fischer is a pistol in her recording
of the Brahms concerto with Yakov Kreizberg and the Netherlands
Philharmonic on a PentaTone Classics SACD. The winner of the Yehudi
Menuhin Competition in 1995 goes on a tear in allegro sections of this
work, leaning into tempos and nailing the pyrotechnics. Her tone is
controlled and penetrating. She is convincingly soaring and poetic
in the lyrical passages, too, taking time to explore backwaters,
but remaining taut. Kreizberg, a frequent collaborator, offers rather
well behaved but effectively transparent support. In all, an imposing
calling card for Fischer.
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