Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 (1878), Scriabin: Symphony No. 3 in C minor, “Le Poème Divin” (“The Divine Poem”), Op. 43 (1902-04), Vadim Repin (violin),, New York Philharmonic, Riccardo Muti (conductor), Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, 20.01.2007 (BH)

 

 

While watching Vadim Repin sail through Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on an ocean of confidence, I was reminded of a friend years ago who commented on Mikhail Baryshnikov.  She always felt a certain comfort knowing that his artistry would never fall below a certain level – which allowed her to focus more securely on his art and less on “whether or not he would just get through it.”  This same security permeated Repin’s performance, which was huge but never perfunctory.  Occasionally he and conductor Riccardo Muti could be seen grinning at each other.  During pauses, Repin occasionally examined the flip side of his violin, perhaps searching for stray bits of detritus that might be affecting the sound.

Muti began the first movement with tension mounting almost immediately, and Repin entered as if a fever were taking hold.  Repin is a formidable stage presence, a big player with an instrument that sounds as if it carries a built-in megaphone.  But even so, with his chin tucked, smiling and oozing soulfulness, somehow the violinist faded into the background and in its place, a bearish storyteller appeared, intent on reading the pages with the most vivid imagination.  His ease spilled over into the showy cadenza, and when it was all over the audience charged in with spontaneous applause.  The Canzonetta was distinguished by a near-ideal balance between the orchestra and soloist, the former sometimes almost backing away in awe while Repin seemed to be offering a prayer.  And in the final Allegro vivacissimo, despite a nostalgic idyll in the middle, the tempo was almost alarmingly fast, with Repin, Muti and the orchestra racing breathlessly to the conclusion.  The stunned friend with me called the performance “a stealth operation.”

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Muti recorded Scriabin’s complete orchestral works with the Philadelphia Orchestra, a sensuously felt cycle that is easily recommendable to anyone seeking these works in modern sound.  His empathy is like the tenderness shown a slightly flawed lover.  As much as I adore the Third Symphony, the composer’s almost childlike delight in the opening five-note fanfare can soon lead to impatient listeners crying, “Enough already!” and even I admit that in the middle, the composer’s inspiration seems to meander.  Even the very last chords, after the hothouse vapors have subsided, can seem a bit arbitrary or even square.  All that said, few conductors have the measure of this sprawling, mystical landscape, which is indeed vast but somehow beguiles with a kind of innocence, a belief in the power of nature – flowers, birds, water, rocks, sunlight – to tell us about the universe.

Some describe Scriabin’s language as “Wagnerian,” but although there is a resemblance I doubt anyone would confuse the two.  Scriabin is the more wild-eyed mystic, quickly gets caught up in his own otherworldliness, and his relentless obsessions can seem downright wearisome.  But Muti somehow transforms all, eliciting a vast and glittering palette of colors with commensurate attention to dynamics and phrasing, and delivered by the New York Philharmonic as if they, too, were swept up in some kind of higher consciousness.  As a renowned opera conductor, Muti instinctively knows how to outline the drama, underscoring the highlights, while meticulously sketching in the details and then presenting the result with fabulous orchestral playing.  It almost goes without saying that this piece would be almost dead in the water without them.  

 

 

Bruce Hodges