Bartok: Violin Concerti

Christian Tetzlaff, violin. Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu
Ondine 1317-2
Total Time:  60:42
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

When it comes to Bartok’s violin concerti, it is the second which tends to find more performances with nearly twice as many recordings of it currently available.  Most of the recordings of the second are recommendable and will be a matter of taste.  A more recent one from Hungaraton featuring Barnabas Kelemen and conducted by Zoltan Kocsis is a personal favorite at the top of the heap.  But it tends to boil down to what else is included on the album.  In this new release from Ondine, violinist Christian Tetzlaff has paired both concertos from concerts recorded in October 2017.

Thirty years separate the two concertos which allow listeners to thus hear the stylistic changes at play in the world and within Bartok’s own expression.  The second concerto (1938) was composed for his friend Zoltan Szekely and is in a typical three-movement structure.  The piece eschews the more direct folk theme quotations instead integrating and transforming them into Bartok’s own musical gestures.  This can be heard from the first movement whose original “verbunkos” tempo marking suggested this general direction in his music.  A lyrical opening melody soon moves into a strikingly modern style with decidedly more angular writing and modern harmonic dress.  The intervals shift between those which are slightly more open and the collapse of these into dissonant clusters.  All of this against a consistently virtuosic solo line.  The drama allows for these often folk-like moments to stand out in their simple beauty amidst the harsher signposts.  The later violin glissando in this movement seems to practically cry out in anguish in Tetzlaff’s hands.  This sense of collapse can be felt as well in the central movement.  This theme and variations is not serial in a strict sense, but certainly alludes to this style.  The movement is a microcosm of this influence as well as folkish colors with romanticism and modernism vying for attention.  The final movement is itself a variation of the first creating this larger arching structure to the concerto.  The Finnish RSO is an apt accompanist with clear execution and highlights of some of the more acerbic moments that appear in the work.  Tetzlaff’s tone here is quite stunning.  There are moments in the second movement where one can sense this atonal flirtation in an almost Berg-like way.  Tetzlaff brings this out quite well.  But it is equally fascinating to hear how the different colors of Bartok’s music are brought out in often stunning detail.  Lintu helps punctuate this dramatic give and take against a soloist that sometimes plays down almost to a whisper in the central movement, which is filled with fantastic articulation from the orchestra as well.  The third movement opens with the clearly-delineated motif that connects us to the first movement.  Now it moves ever frenetically forward as the orchestra’s own energy grows against the soloist’s.  The detail here is also quite well done with the beauty of Bartok’s orchestration one of the delights brought out so well.  Another of the hallmarks of the performance is the way the different repeated gestures across the movements are performed in a way that recalls their earlier appearance and helps make the musical connections clearer.  The conclusion of the work may have you jumping to your feet.

The first concerto, composed between 1907-08, was written as a romantic flirtation with the violinist Stefi Geyer who was seven years younger than the composer.  Each of the planned three movements was intended to reflect different aspects of her personality.  The first expressing the more interior and intimate aspects in warm lyricism and the second the more immediately seen outgoing ones through virtuosic displays.  A third movement never was completed and the concerto itself lay unperformed until 1956.  Bartok would reuse the material from the first movement in the first of the Two Portraits (1911).  The work is an extension of leitmotif ideas, particularly in a motif used in the first movement, and even has a bit of Richard Strauss in its fabric.  When the soloist enters, there is almost a sense of the line being self-absorbed, unable to see around itself.  The orchestra slowly sneaks in to try and connect their sense of this line with the soloist in intricate writing.  The tortuous romanticism gradually grows as the movement progresses.  The second movement incorporates a children’s song which is one of three themes used in this sonata-form structure.  Again, Tetzlaff’s articulation here helps drive this work with gorgeous phrasing that is equally matched in the orchestra.  Both here prove to be just as in synch interpretively as in the first work on the album and that helps make this an even more engaging performance.

While I will not likely toss aside the Kelemen, the pairing here of the two concerti with such excellent sound and dramatic energy is going to be hard to beat moving forward.

 Kabalevsky/Weinberg: Concertos 

Benjamin Schmid, violin.  Claire Huangci, piano.  Harriet Krijgh, cello.
ORf Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra/Cornelius Meister
Capriccio C5310
Total Time:  66:34
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Placing one’s own political position and hindsight into evaluation of composers can be a slippery slope.  This is precisely what happens though as one begins reading the notes to this new Capriccio release of composers whose lives followed two quite different political paths.  Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904-1987) was on the wrong side of history politically.  He sided with the Stalinists and went so far as to denounce other composers and essentially was a political opportunist.  That is no reason for the author to declare that his music “has rightly been forgotten.”  Nor is that really a true statement as the composer’s overtures, ballets, and especially the second cello concerto, has tended to stay in concert programs.  And it is not good marketing for a purchaser to open liner notes to be told that they have purchased music from an awful composer.  Whether this is to set up the dichotomy between the composer’s represented on the disc or not, it sets an unfortunate bad taste to this otherwise fascinating release of lesser-known works.

The recording opens with the Violin Concerto in g, Op. 67 by Miecszyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996).  Weinberg is one of the equally fine composers of the period.  He entered the Warsaw Conservatory at 12 but was forced to flee when Germany attacked Poland.  Thus began his life of hardship living as a Jew in the midst of an increasingly hostile environment.  He eventually made his way to Tashkent and worked at the opera.  He sent his first symphony to Shostakovich who would provide what support he could, though this too became more difficult over time.  This 1959 concerto was among the works admired by Shostakovich.  One can certainly see why.  The work is cast in four movements with a sonata allegro opening that kicks off with the soloist presenting a strong rhythmic idea that forms one cell of the movement.  It is perhaps in the central movements though where one can hear some of Weinberg’s most intimate and stylistic writing.  This is the sort of post-1950 Romanticism that used modern harmony to expand further along Mahlerian lines, very much like Shostakovich.  The intensity of the Adagio is perhaps the most compelling with somber lyric lines.  Once we head into the final movement, we are treated to music that parallels Shostakovich.  A dotted rhythmic idea helps provide some unity here as the violin then expands upon this with delicate orchestral interjections as the piece progresses.  Here are fascinating shifts in instrumental color that create a wonderful intimacy between soloist and woodwinds in particular.  Also quite interesting are the tutti sections that have this martial-like rhythmic drive that pops up to almost intimidate the soloist.  About the only thing left to add in would be a xylophone to add bite to the orchestration a la Shostakovich.  This is easily a concerto that can stand alongside the more familiar Prokofiev works and provide excellent opportunities for virtuosity.  Schmid tackles this work quite well adding just the right bite when needed, but really bringing out the beautiful lyricism of this excellent work.  It is worth tracking down Leonid Kogan’s Melodiya recording as well for comparison.  Capriccio places the soloist very forward in the sound picture here.

There are two works by Kabalevsky featured on the album.  The first is the Fantasy in f (1961) which is based on Schubert’s 1828 piano-four hand work (D940).  This is essentially an opportunity to explore orchestration and this is what Kabalevsky does to great effect.  He turns Schubert’s little fantasy into a Russian piano concerto, complete with a third-movement cadenza.  Written for Emil Gilels, who recorded the work as well, it is essentially a completely new piece that at times sounds like what a composer might create for a modern film.  As such it is quite a curiosity that it great pops material.  Pianist Claire Huangci fortunately understands this connection more to Rachmaninov perhaps than Schubert and the sort of semi-improvisational style that is necessary when it comes to her beautifully-rendered cadenza.

Finally, we get a chance to hear the acclaimed Dutch cellist, Harriet Krijgh.  Krijgh has recorded a number of classic repertoire items to great acclaim.  Here she explores this first of Kabalevsky’s two concerti for the instrument.  The Cello Concerto No. 1 in g, Op 49 serves a double purpose here of both a contrasting musical voice from mid-century Soviet Russia, and a parallel exploration of g-minor.  The concerto is one of several Kabalevsky wrote to challenge young musicians—a particular interest the composer began to cultivate.  As such then this is well-balanced traditional concerto that blends traditional harmony with slight chromaticism and a sense of folkloricism in its thematic components.  The solo line has some quite touching musical moments that drip with this Romantic and accessible quality.  The grand gestures here are often gorgeously orchestrated and these colors help draw attention solely on the soloist’s own virtuosic style which gradually increases in excitement as the first movement moves along.  The center is another of these rich, Khachaturian-like, slow movements.  The finale has great give and take emotionally, but one gets a sense that here is a composer celebrating the growing talent of a new musician.  Of course, Krijgh is much further along than a starting cellist and she gives this work an excellent read through filled with great touches of wit and beauty.  If nothing else, the concerto teaches the tropes of modern concerti that a young artist will continue to be challenged with along their own performance trajectory.

Each of the pieces here feature a sound picture where the soloist is further forward.  The balance is not necessarily “off” by any means and the orchestral accompaniment is captured well.  The full sound of both Schmid and Krijgh’s instruments is gorgeous to hear.  The orchestra provides a committed support to each soloist.  In short, this is an excellent recording worth tracking down with some accessible music all around.

The worst part of the release are the often snide and snarky comments in the liner notes by Jens Laurson who obviously detests Kabalevsky’s music.  His dismissive commentary does nothing to provide musicological understanding objectively to the works at hand.  There is little or not discussion of the music itself, even for the Weinberg which Laurson obviously feels should not have to share disc space with Kabalevsky.  Your best bet is to drop the disc in your player and decide for yourself what you think of these three works.  The Weinberg is the masterpiece to be sure of serious concert music.  But one can say the same about the cello concerto’s ability to serve its purpose as a piece of music education for new soloists.  Either way, the album itself is excellent even if its booklet notes practically make you embarrassed for even purchasing it in the first place.