Philip GLASS (b.1937)
Violin Concerto No.1 (1987) [30’47]
Leonard BERNSTEIN (1918-1990)
Serenade After Plato’s Symposium (1954) [33’10]
Renaud Capuçon (violin)
Bruckner Orchester Linz/Dennis Russell Davies
rec. 25-26 February 2010, Brucknerhaus Linz (Bernstein); 17-18 February
2016, Musiktheater Linz (Glass)
ORANGE MOUNTAIN MUSIC OMM0114 [63:57]
Philip Glass’s First Violin Concerto is
something of a modern masterpiece in my view (something I didn’t
originally believe of this work, not least when I reviewed
the Adele Anthony performance many years ago). Written between late
1986 and early 1987, it’s a work that is very typical of this
composer’s output during that decade, especially recalling his third
opera Akhnaten. Typical of Glass’s music at this time, the
underlying tension is steeped in dark-hued, even doom-laden gestures;
minor key arpeggios are rattled off in long paragraphs of
skeletal-sounding brilliance and the rhythms themselves are propelled
by a sense of momentum that is rarely less than hard-driven; sometimes
it seems to move along like an old, classic steam engine (and this is
also true when Glass is writing at a much broader tempo). Indeed, the
theory that Glass’s music is best taken at a fast tempo (as all three
previous recordings of this concerto have been) is somewhat turned on
the head in this brilliant recording (the first in 18 years) by the
French violinist Renaud Capuçon. This soloist and conductor do have a
history of performing this work in concert (New York in 2009, for
example) and one gets the feeling this is an authentic reading of the
concerto, despite the unusually spacious tempo. He is considerably
slower in all three movements (almost three minutes alone in the
rapturous second movement) than Gidon Kremer, Robert McDuffie and Adele
Anthony were for their recordings and the result is the most
spellbinding and hypnotic version of this concerto yet done. I found
the experience of listening to this performance very cathartic.
The great deception with Glass’s music is that it is somehow easy to
play because of the heavily repeated arpeggios yet the violin in this
First Concerto is inspired to playing of tremendous lyricism and power,
too, especially when taken at Capuçon’s dangerously deliberate speed.
One of the tenets of minimalism, so wonderfully articulated in
Capuçon’s performance, is that the brilliant, lightening-bolts of
cascading arpeggios seem to derive such weight and power from his tempo
choices. It’s perhaps not how we are used to hearing this work (or
Glass in general), but I found it utterly compelling. At times, the
counterpoint of these arpeggios is dramatically set against the soloist
in striking relief, rather like a classical frieze. The intense slow
movement, taking its sense of mystery and darkness from the composer’s
abolition of violins in Akhnaten, has the solo violin soaring
over the orchestra in beautifully crafted cantabile lines against a
backdrop of bass-laden chords. In part, this entire movement is a
conflict between the forces of stasis and dynamism, not the usual
struggle of a soloist against an orchestra. But that intense,
long-breathed soaring of the solo instrument over the orchestra is what
dominates here. In the coda to the final movement, for example, the
violin swells above the orchestra against the pulse of almost fugal
orchestral chords but the symmetry of how he treats the violin in this
coda, as a solo voice, harks back to the composer’s first opera Einstein
on the Beach where the role of Einstein was taken by a solo
violin. Glass allows the violinist much space in the final movement for
virtuosity and kaleidoscopically frenzied tonal colouring, which just
add to the work’s vibrant palate.
The basic premise of Glass’s music, especially during this 1980s
period, is one of balancing the rhythms with the stasis of the harmony.
Capuçon’s gift in this concerto isn’t to rewrite this principle, rather
it is to alter the density of the work. It’s hard to escape the notion
that in Capuçon’s assured hands this is one of the great late Twentieth
Century’s Romantic violin concertos. No violinist to date comes close
to Capuçon in making this music sound so rich and deeply layered; his
tone is just mesmerising and the passion of his playing absolutely in a
class of its own. It’s like peeling back skin to reveal a strikingly
decorated skull behind it. The weight of his tone may sometimes stifle
the speed at which he is able to tackle some of Glass’s more
high-octane rhythmic writing in the outer movements, but this is more
than compensated for by the sonorous tapestry he weaves on his
instrument (one should also note that Glass’s metronome markings for
this concerto – so carefully observed by the conductor, Dennis Russell
Davies - are rather closer to what the composer wrote than in other
versions of this concerto). Capuçon is close to the m.108 to m.96 in
the second movement, for example, and almost nails the m.150 of the
first section of the third).
No performance, either, offers such a contrast between this concerto’s
distinctive, almost classical, structure. It’s almost conceived as a
traditional three-movement violin concerto, but is nothing like the
models we are used to hearing. One of the drawbacks of the performances
by Kremer, McDuffie and Anthony is that the slow movement has never
sounded sufficiently distinct enough from the rest of the concerto;
Capuçon corrects that. The highest plaudits, as well, to the Bruckner
Orchester Linz under Dennis Russell Davies (the conductor who premiered
this concerto in April 1987, where the soloist was Paul Zukofsky). If
listeners think that the orchestration might be scaled down a little,
that’s because it is in this new revision. No orchestra today, and no
conductor, are so immersed in Philip Glass’s music as these – and it
shows. The brilliant, rhythmically rich and technically precise playing
are a joy to listen to. The recorded sound is very fine, the best yet
for this concerto, and the balance between violin and orchestra, whilst
immediate, is wonderfully captured by the engineers.
The Glass Concerto has suffered from some pretty dire coupling
decisions in past recordings (my guess is that if Capuçon had Glass’s
brilliantly virtuosic Second Concerto in his repertoire a single disc
might have been a push). As it is, this recording doesn’t escape the
coupling problem either. While marginally better than Kremer’s
Schnittke Concerto Grosso Nr.5, Capuçon’s performance of
Bernstein’s Serenade After Plato’s Symposium, whilst in
itself technically brilliant and immaculately played, can’t rescue the
work from its reputation as an over-inflated, pretentious piece of
bombast. Bernstein’s scoring might be considered even more radical than
Glass’s in some ways, but this isn’t a work for violin that is easy to
love. The jazziness of Bernstein is well-captured, but compared to the
Apollonian wonders of the Glass this ultimately sounds a touch
earthbound.
No, the reason to buy this disc is for the definitive performance of
the Glass concerto. Capuçon has rewritten the rules for
performing Glass’s music and in doing so given us the outstanding
recording of this concerto to date.
Marc Bridle