The disc’s title, ‘Essentials’, refers both to
the self-limiting four strings of the solo violin and also to
the cornerstone quality of the repertoire, avers Herwig Zack
in his booklet notes. I think he is being rather over-generous
to some of his colleagues when he says that the Bach and Ysa˙e
and Bartók works occupy every violinist, as they do him. Bach,
yes, but many shy away from the Bartók and you’ll encounter
a swathe of fiddle players who never essay any of the Ysa˙e
sonatas in concert. Technique may be getting better, so they
say, but these works still retain their power to dismay.
Zack has organised a challenging programme, then,
one that deals with Essentials. It also deals, so far as I can
see, with inter-relations; the Bach is the canonic centre from
which derives the Ysa˙e, itself a work of homage and the Skalkottas
owes much to baroque procedure as well; Kreisler’s delicious
Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice was dedicated to Ysa˙e. The Bartók
is probably the most formidable solo violin work of the twentieth
century. Another element is that of recitative, which permeates
some of the choices of music – the Kreisler explicitly, the
Ysa˙e in its form.
The Third Ysa˙e sonata is dedicated to Enescu
and is the shortest of the six, though in many ways the most
harmonically exploratory. This recording shares with its companion
ones – though less so the Bach; the recordings were all made
on different dates so far as I can tell – a very up-front and
visceral quality. The abrasive immediacy adds a tactile, tensile
quality to this sonata, a resinous terseness which some may
welcome, others dislike. It lends the performance in any case
a very much more extrovert character. Dynamics are vertiginous
and there’s a sudden plosive quality to the playing. This extrovert,
muscular and no-hold-barred reading is very different to, say,
Oscar Shumsky’s linearity of expression (Nimbus NI1735
– a three CD Shumsky set).
Skalkottas’s links with Bachian procedure are
a measure of this early work, one ironically almost contemporaneous
with Ysa˙e’s more forward-looking sonata. Again for a more equable
and balanced aural ride you might prefer Georgios Demertzis’s
BIS recording (BIS CD1024). I tend to find the Greek player
deals better with the light and shade of the sonata as well,
vesting its cat-and-mouse passages with just a bit more subtlety,
an impression heightened of course by the recording. It’s also
the case that Zach’s vibrato can become oppressive in this hothouse
recording acoustic, Demetrius’s slimmer tonal resources being
capable of greater variations of colour. That said, for those
who like the powerful declamatory style evinced by Zach this
is the way to do it. Again, his Kreisler receives a strongly
personalised reading. The restless, rather cagey approach certainly
animates things splendidly but one may find, as I do, that the
approach and the recording dampen the lightness and wit that
others – Shumsky prominently – bring to it, especially the Presto
finale (Nimbus NI2529-32, a four CD all-Kreisler box).
The recording is less of a problem with the intelligently
phrased Bach Partita, in which Zach plays the Chaconne at a
fine tempo and with sure architectural goals met. The Sarabanda
is quite measured and reserved. And the Bartók receives a characteristically
rugged and rough-hewn reading that brings out the tensile Bachian
aspects with bold, abrasive brush strokes. There are plenty
of emotive expressive devices here, and playing that keeps one
listening throughout.
An excellent, revealing programme then, chosen
with intelligence and a more than worthy successor to Zack’s
Catoire
Avie disc. The violin has been recorded too close though,
which means that an element of aural weariness can set in and
this, combined with Zach’s occasionally militant abrasion, certainly
makes for galvanic listening. Still, it’s not all about mellifluousness
and if you can deal with the aural questions you will find this
a pungent recital, dashingly delivered.
Jonathan Woolf
Herwig Zack (violin)
