If you reach the finals
of a competition such as the Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow) or
Queen Elisabeth Competition (Brussels), you cannot play it safe; to
impress the jury and win a medal, you need to go for broke. Thus the
great attraction of the four CD booklet from the Queen Elisabeth
competition, featuring eight different violin concertos played by
eight different prize winners. There was obviously a policy of not
duplicating either violinists, or concertos, which is sometimes a
pity when X's marvellous performance of a given work is not included,
since Y's equally marvellous performance of the same work, is. There
is also the drawback of having orchestras and conductors who are not
always of the top class, and who will not have had much time for
rehearsal of a given work with a given soloist. No real matter; the
spotlight is on the soloists. The stiff cover booklet has poorly reproduced black
and white photos, misspells Philippe Hirschhorn's name throughout,
and does not contain much real information apart from puffs for the
competition. Again: no real matter.
Vadim Repin won the top prize in 1989 with the Tchaikovsky concerto. A magnificent performance,
with a virtuoso finale. Nervous vibrato. Akiko Suwanai came
second that year (Paganini 1st violin concerto, not included here).
Nikolaj Znaider won the first prize in 1997 with a fluent, efficient Sibelius concerto with a good
flowing adagio di molto.
Miriam Fried
(Israel, 1st prize 1971) gives a fluent and fleet-of-foot recording of the
Mendelssohn violin concerto, somewhat in the Heifetz mould. I think
this is how it should be played; if milked for all it is worth,
violinists soon reveal there is not too much milk to be had, whereas
played exuberantly, as here, the concerto sounds fresh and
ever-green. She is recorded a bit too close. Miriam Fried never went
on to have much of a career, at least not in Europe.
Kristof Barati
(1997) gives a thoroughly musical performance of the Beethoven violin
concerto, ably supported by the Flanders Philharmonic under Marc
Soustrot, presumably here on more familiar repertoire territory. This
concerto – like those of Mozart – is perhaps not the best choice
for a major competition, since it provides little scope for stunning
an audience with technical display; the Beethoven concerto is
difficult to play from a musical point of view, and here
Barati is first class. Technically, of course, he is also first rate.
Like Miriam Fried,
Yossif Ivanov (born in Belgium, despite his name) never went
on to have much of a career after his success in Brussels in 2005. It
is a pity that the desire not to duplicate concertos in this album
means that the first Shostakovich concerto is given to Ivanov, as
here, rather than presenting the coruscating 1963 performance by
Alexei Michlin (first prize in that year).
I have blogged
previously about the astonishing performance of Elgar's violin
concerto by Gidon Kremer (1967). A pity about the contribution
of the Belgian National Orchestra under René Defossez – the Elgar
concerto, like that of Beethoven, needs a solid orchestral backing.
It is a real shame that Kremer – never one of my favourite
violinists – seems never to have recorded the Elgar again.
The same year saw the
first prize go to Kremer's fellow Latvian, Philippe Hirschhorn,
with an amazing performance of Paganini's first concerto. This is
presumably why Akiko Suwanai's terrific performance in 1989 is not
included in this 4-CD album. But it's good to have Hirschhorn in full
flight, since he was a superb violinist.
The eighth concerto is
the Bartok, given to Barnabas Kelemen (2001). Not one of my
favourite concertos, but convincingly played here. This Queen
Elisabeth set of four concertos is an essential acquisition for all
lovers of fine violin playing.