Bruch: Violin Concerto No 2 et al (Jack Liebeck/BBC Scottish SO/Brabbins)
by Steve Moffatt on April 12, 2017
This lovely disc from Hyperion completes brilliant young British violinist Jack Liebeck's survey of the three Bruch concertos with the excellent BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins.
At its heart is the Second Violin Concerto which, despite being championed by Perlman and Heifitz, still remains shamefully neglected in the concert hall. Proudly romantic with big singing melodies and death-defying solo passages, it has all the hallmarks of the great 19th century barnstormers and shows that the ever-popular First Concerto was no fluke. Liebeck and his smooth-toned Guadagnini take it on with magnificent aplomb. Originally composed for the Spanish virtuoso Sarasate, the 36-year-old Londoner shows he has golden tone, character to spare and a dazzling technique.
The disc's other three works are equally enjoyable. Bruch considered the Adagio Appassionato one of his best works. Konzertstück started out as the 'Fourth Concerto' but Bruch refused to add a third movement. He probably felt that not much needed to be said after its glorious Adagio. Bruch described In Memoriam, a single movement which starts with an ominous tattoo from the timpani, as "a lamentation, a kind of instrumental elegy". Liebeck, seen in Australia last year with Trio Dali for Musica Viva, gets wonderful support from Brabbins and his excellent band. This is Vol 21 of Hyperion's Great Romantic Violin Concertos survey. Keep them coming!
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Review: Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1, Romance, Serenade (Jack Liebeck)
Poor old Max Bruch! First, he opted for a flat fee instead of a royalty percentage for his phenomenally successful First Violin Concerto and then persisted in trying to replicate that success – with little success. He lived beyond his creative period and was still influenced by Schumann, Mendelssohn etc. in an age when Wagner and Richard Strauss were the rage. Having said that, I'm absolutely smitten with one of the works on this CD: the A Minor Serenade, Op. 75, composed in 1899. At 36 minutes it almost outstays its welcome (Accardo and the late deeply lamented Kurt Masur on Philips are even slower) but its dreamy first movement, followed by a jaunty march (which has a meltingly lovely Trio section) a ravishing Nocturne and the Finale, which ends as serenely as the work began, make for a delightful diversion. As does the Op. 42 Romance, also in A Minor. Liebeck's account of the G Minor Concerto is fine but unexceptional. What can there possibly be left to say about it other than his is more demure than some recent renditions? The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins sounds alert and makes this warhorse sound as freshly minted…
Review: Bruch: Violin Concerto No 3 (Liebeck)
Bruch's reputation was dealt a blow during the Nazi period as the dopey fascists thought that, as a result of his fine cello work, Kol Nidrei, he was probably a Jew and consequently banned his music. It took a long time for it to be returned to favour. The Scottish Fantasy is among his most popular works, and deservedly so. The mordant opening doesn't promise much, but the violin soon emerges in a series of ruminative phrases and beguiling sea surges from which the fine melody (for which the work is famous) develops. The Adagio is gorgeous and the five-movement fantasia finishes with a robust swirl of the kilts. His third violin concerto is rarely played and it's not hard to see why. Although professionally written, it seems to have little appeal and cannot hold a candle to the popular First Concerto. The final movement is the strongest, with many attractive phrases reminding us of his better works. At the risk of seeming a smart-Alec, it may have helped had he included some Scottish folk tunes. Nonetheless, Bruch considered it his best concerto and who am I to argue? He might have coined the phrase: 'A poor thing but mine…
Review: Kreisler: Violin Music (Liebeck, Apekisheva)
Here is a collection of charming short pieces from a bygone age. Salon music, if you like. As a style, salon music has declined almost to the point of extinction, so this lovely collection of lightly perfumed compositions for violin and orchestra are a welcome reminder from the pen of one of the last century's greatest violinists, Fritz Kreisler. Indeed, his attractive and melodious pieces often eclipsed his reputation as a virtuoso, so popular were they in the first half of the last century. Caprice viennois and Schön Rosmarin were typical pops of the day. Many of the pieces are arrangements. Dvorák's Slavonic Dance in E Minor and Dance Espagnole by de Falla from his opera La Vida Breve. Gluck's beautiful Mélodie from Orfeo ed Euridice was loved long before the complete opera gained more popular appeal in the 1960s. The most substantial work on the CD is the Sonata in G Minor by Tartini, arranged here by Kreisler with its famous devil's trill (which Liebeck throws off brilliantly). Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro, an original work and one of his finest compositions, is also on the list. Compared to the relative frivolity of some of the others, the Praeludium is…
Review: Bruch, Dvořák: Violin Concertos (Fischer)
Dvorák's Violin Concerto is a neglected masterpiece, overshadowed by its cello counterpart and the New World Symphony, but it's never likely to have a better advocate than German violinist Julia Fischer. Don't be fooled into thinking that the glamorous 30-year-old former prize-winner in the Menuhin Competition is yet another of these ubiquitous entertainers firing up the classics while prancing about decoratively in Armani. She's a violinist of the old school,
with a sweet, penetrating tone
(old-timers should think David
Oistrakh or Nathan Milstein)
focussed always on the phrase at hand and never the personality driving it.
And she's found her conducting counterpart in David Zinman and his Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, a man whose recording history, taking in THE recording of the Górecki
Third Symphony and an acclaimed complete Beethoven cycle plus much more, turns many of the oh-darling-isn't-he-wonderful celebrity conductors into also-rans. The balance of this recording, the sympatico between soloist and orchestra, and the intelligence of the approach is a joy, the
first movement filled with Dvorák's Czech equivalent of Sturm und Drang (the result, perhaps, of his friendships with Brahms and Joachim who both had some kind of hand in the concerto's genesis), while the slow movement is as lovely as you…
Review: BLOCH & BRUCH (Natalie Clein, BBC Scottish SO/Ilan Volkov)
Ever since she won two major competitions as a 16-year-old nearly two decades ago, Natalie Clein has had a reputation in her native Britain not just as one of the finest cellists going around but also as one of the most intelligent, a fact borne out in her extraordinary previous recording of music by Kodály. But that acclaimed disc – one of only a handful of commercial recordings she's made in her entire career – was only a warm-up for this magnificent new CD of masterpieces for cello and orchestra by Bloch and Bruch. In her succinct addition to the main liner notes, Clein describes Bloch's "deep sense of longing and loneliness" – qualities which are more than demonstrated in a stunning reading of the immortal Schelomo. The very first notes on solo cello sear the soul, before burning their way deep down in a rich sound mix, and when Ilan Volkov fires up the BBC Scottish Symphony in the big tuttis it's almost overwhelming. Clein has a way of making the cello wailand keen like a lamenting voice drifting in from some windswept hill, wild and untamed in its spirit but with never a note out of place. And…
Review: BRAHMS: Violin Sonatas (Jack Liebeck; Katya Apekisheva)
Listening to this disc, it's clear why the three Brahms violin sonatas are so beloved by violinists: they comprise some of the most beautiful writing committed to manuscript for the instrument. So persuasive is this account by young British violinist Jack Liebeck that it's hard to tell who is gaining the fullest pleasure – the performer or listener. Which is of course as it should be. The First Sonata was penned in 1879 when the composer was in his mid-40s. He then waited seven years before composing the final two. All three works are brimming with melodic and rhythmic riches – while the first two sonatas spill over with sun-suffused beauty, the third has noticeably more complex drama and emotion at its base. This does not mean that the first two do not carry profound passages; the First Sonata's Adagio for instance is one of the most intense movements in Romantic musical literature. It is the favourite of many violinists, and it's interesting to note that in fact this may have been Brahms's least favourite. "Play it once", he told a friend. "More it does not deserve…" These works would serve as a perfect introduction to Brahms's chamber music. They belie the fact that…