Credit should go to the Fedotov/Yablonsky
team for this follow up CD to their
previous Naxos
disc (8.557395 -see review)
which couples the Scottish Fantasy
with the far less familiar Serenade
Op.75. Last year EBS Records coupled
the G minor concerto with its later
sibling, the third in D minor, so hopefully
such imaginative policies on the part
of the independent record companies
will wean the public off its commonly
held belief that Bruch was a one-work
composer, of that concerto and little
else. As far as works for the violin
and orchestra are concerned there are
nine of them, which back in the 1980s
Philips produced as a boxed set of vinyl
played by Accardo under Masur. Only
five of these were transferred to CD
(Philips 462 167-2), with neither the
Romanze nor the Konzertstück among them.**
The Romanze is available on Fleur de
son 57925 and Vox Classics VXP 7906,
but to the best of my knowledge this
Naxos Konzertstück is a premiere in
CD format.
In
1870 Bruch opted for a freelance career
as a composer after five years at Coblenz
and Sondershausen respectively. This
pattern of alternating the security
of a paid conducting post with the freelance
option as a composer would persist until
1890 when he became professor of composition
in Berlin. Bruch never again achieved
the success of his first violin concerto.
Curiously it was through his secular
oratorios such as Odysseus in
1870 that his fame spread, even to England, where its success eventually
led to his appointment to Liverpool in 1880. As far as violin
concertos were concerned, he attempted
a second early in 1874, but his love
life was going through a troubled patch,
and after completing the first movement
he lost his muse, the rest of the work
becoming no more than ‘a glimmer of
ideas’. He was, however pleased with
what he had written and encouraged by
positive responses from his friends
and colleagues, so he decided to publish
it as a single movement Romanze.
Based on two typically lyrical melodies,
according to one critic it was based
on the Nordic Saga of ‘Gudrun’s Lament
by the Sea’, but knowing the composer’s
aversion to programmatic music and what
was happening to him at the time, it
is far more likely to be subtitled ‘Max’s
Lament by the Rhine for Amalie Heydweiller’,
whose love he had just lost. As the
first movement to his projected second
violin concerto it is unusual in that
it is slow. Interestingly Bruch persists
with this idea when he did indeed come
to write the work some three years later.
By
the time Bruch came to write the Konzertstück
he was over seventy years old. It was
written for the American violinist Maud
Powell, and again it became a truncated
concerto, although this time in two
linked movements rather than one. It
was dedicated to Willy Hess, who Bruch
had helped to return from his post as
leader of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
to teach at the Berlin
Music
Academy
- he had also led the Hallé Orchestra
and frequently performed Bruch’s concertos.
Powell gave its first performance at
the Norfolk Festival in Connecticut
on 8 June 1911, and part of the work
was subsequently recorded, the first
music by Bruch to be so. ‘She has played
the Adagio alone, half of it cut, into
a machine (!!!). I told her a few truths’,
he wrote later that month. This Adagio
uses the Irish folksong ‘The Little
Red Lark’ underlining the composer’s
love for folk music. It is a beautiful
movement, reminiscent of the Adagio
from Op.26, written soon after the death
of his great friend and violin-adviser
Joachim, and is the last music Bruch
wrote for solo violin and orchestra.
Four decades later, the circle had been
completed.
Fedotov’s
playing takes no hostages; it is full-blooded
in sound and passionately committed,
at the same time clinically judged in
clean intonation and phrasing, nevertheless
the famous Adagio in the G minor concerto
should bring a tear to the eye. Tempi
are studied, his passage work and double-stopping
technique impressively faultless, especially
if you like that Eastern European roughness
which, for some ears, can be brittle.
He clearly loves Bruch’s music, this
is no mere ‘gig’. Despite some crude
sounds from the heavy brass, the orchestra
and conductor serve him well and the
acoustics are spaciously resonant, even
if possibly added in post-production.
If only because works other than Op.26
are featured, especially the beautiful
Konzertstück, Bruch would have approved.
Christopher Fifield
see also Review
by Michael Cookson June
Bargain of the Month
**
Note received from Ken Gerberg
Christopher Fifield's review
on the latest Naxos release of Bruch
vioin & orchestra selections, neglected
to state that all nine works that were
originally released on LP were also
released on a 3 cd set (Philips 432282-2).
Further Information received
I thought Christopher Fifield and Ken
Gerberg might like to know that Accardos
recordings of the Bruch violin concerti
and Scottish Fantasy & Serenade
for vln & orch op.75 are still available
on a Philips Duo. 4621672 AmazonUK
The other pieces for violin & orchestra,
including the Konzertstück in F
sharp minor are available together with
Bruchs symphonies on a second Philips
Duo.4621642 AmazonUK
Greetings, Roman T.Pawlik
BUY
NOW
AmazonUK
AmazonUS
Maxim Fedotov (violin)
