Eight Prizewinning Violinists

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 1^st 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.