Sibelius · Tchaikovsky · Violin Concertos · Gil Shaham

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Sibelius · Tchaikovsky · Violin Concertos · Gil Shaham

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Sibelius · Tchaikovsky · Violin Concertos · Shaham · PO · Sinopoli
Classical | EAC | APE, CUE, LOG 291 MB | MP3 HQ, Tracks 107 MB
1 CD | Covers | rs.com | 1993

CD SibeIius Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor, Op. 47.

Tchaikovsky Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D, Op. 35. Gil Shaham (vn); Philharmonia Orchestra / Giuseppe Sinopoli.
DG CD CD 437 540-2GH (67 minutes: DDD).

Selected comparisons—coupled as above:
Mullova, Boston SO, Ozawa (5/87) (PHIL) 41682! .2PH Kennedy, 0350, Rattle, LPO, Kama (5187) (9/88) (R) (EMt) CDC7 54127-2

Sibelius—selected comparison
Chsing, LSO, Previn (3/89) (00CC) 421 449-20M3

Tchaikovsky –selected comparison:
Chang, LSO, Previn (9/86) (DECC)414 707-2DM

The coupling of "the best violin concerto that Tchaikovsky didn't write" with the one he did is logical and attractive. The first time I remember the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky in coupling on LP was in Kyung-Wha Chung's debut recording for Decca (11/70), and I am rather sorry that that pairing has been broken up for CD. In performance her youthful readings are even more searching than the fine ones here. Gil Shaham, whose earlier DG discs I have praised highly in these pages, here demonstrates his increasing maturity and power in bigboned performances that in the broadest sense I would describe as 'school-of-Perlman'. You might indeed mistake Sibelius for Tchaikovsky in this reading.

The start of the first movement brings warmth and fluency rather than mystery, with the great opening melody delivered very much in the light of day. Chung and Mullova did find such mystery, but Shaham has his clear justification in the score, when Sibelius's marking for the soloist is not pianissimo at all but mezzo forte, with the rider do/ce ed espressivo which is just how Shaham presents it. The big double-stopped theme at the Largamenle marking six bars after fig. 3 (track 1, 357) could not be warmer either, with Shaham confidently using a wide vibrato. When his expressive rubato is so persuasive, always sounding strong and spontaneous, not least in the cadenzas, the whole movement is most compelling in its thrust and power, with moments of repose providing heightened contrasts.

In their relative restraint both Mullova and Chung are likely to please Sibelians more, and Kennedy too in his fine performance with Simon Rattle and the CBSO takes a purer line, using less marked vibrato. Not only in the first movement but throughout, Shaham's approach is powerfully matched by Sinopoli and the Philharmonia. The brief instrumental introduction to the central Adagio di mo/to, taken very slowly, brings the subtlest rubato from the Philharmonia clarinets and oboes in their chains of thirds, and the tuttis in all three movements have a weight and thrust to heighten the impact of the soloist. The old idea of this as a weak work could not be more strongly exploded, though such an approach does tend to set the work apart from the rest of the Sibelius oeuvre. The performance is crowned by an account of the finale that is beefy as well as exhilaratingly fast, making Mullova's far more restrained view at a slower speed seem rather too safe. Kennedy, by contrast, at a similar speed to Shaham's finds a jaunty spring in the insistent rhythms, light and resilient. Gramophone 1993