Zina Schiff, RSNO, Jose Serebrier - Ernest Bloch: Violin Concerto; Baal Shem; Suite Hebraique (2007)

Posted By: Designol

Date: 21 Apr 2017 13:37:15

Zina Schiff, RSNO, Jose Serebrier - Ernest Bloch: Violin Concerto; Baal Shem; Suite Hebraique (2007)

A precocious violin talent, Bloch left home at the age of seventeen to study with the illustrious Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe, who regognised his pupil's extraordinary creative potential and persuaded him to pursue composition. Bloch's Violin Cocnerto, an underrated rarity, is one of his most important works of the 1930s. Although Bloch attributed the major themes in the Concerto to American Indian songs heard on a visit to New Mexico, he also described the work as portraying 'the complex, glowing, agitated soul that I feel vibrating through the Bible'. The Suite hébraïque, which draws on traditional melodies to evoke a sense of nostalgia, and the exotic tryptich Baal Shem (Three Pictures of Chassidic Life), are indelibly associated with Bloch's 'Jewish works'.

This is a wonderful disc. Zina Schiff plays this music with exceptional passion and commitment, which is really what Bloch is all about. Her tempos in the outer movements of the concerto are a touch more relaxed than the competition, particularly the classic Szigeti/Mengelberg, but the performance has greater excitement than the (limited) modern recorded versions, not just because of the fine sound, but because Schiff really digs into the music and phrases with both spontaneity and unusual communicative depth. When the melodies have such strong character even the long first movement, which admittedly has a tendency to sprawl in less committed hands, sounds amazingly cogent. It’s clear that Schiff really knows the music and has no inhibitions when it comes to delivering the emotional goods. This is such a lovely work–it’s amazing that it gets played so infrequently.

In the shorter pieces Schiff is just as splendid. The final movement (“Rejoicing”) of Baal Shem lives up to its title as in few other performances, while the Suite Hébraïque’s opening Rapsodie is hypnotically intense. José Serebrier and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra provide ideally balanced, colorful accompaniments, and the engineering, as usual from this source, is terrific. If you’re looking for an inexpensive single disc containing all of Bloch’s major works for violin and orchestra, let this release be your choice. I wonder if Schiff also plays the viola? I’d love to hear these forces in Bloch’s spectacular Viola Suite.

Review by David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

I suppose it all depends how Jewish you like your Bloch Violin Concerto. Soloist Zina Schiff, who also writes the fine booklet notes, has little truck with the composer’s own stated thoughts on the subject. She clearly thinks his promotion of the “American Indian” is an evasion of the “Jewish” motifs in the work. To underscore the point she plays it as she means it, vesting the opening paragraphs with yearning Hebraic tone and expressive portamenti that are, in my experience, unique on disc.

It makes for songful, heightened tension and a definably different alignment in expressive weight. Thus passages in the central movement become, in her hands, a Chassidic chant, and Bloch’s statement that he had “no Jewish intent” in the concerto is put to stern test. She plays with technical assurance throughout, and she brings a strong sense of self-identification to bear—one that’s increased by virtue of her promotion of the Biblical in Bloch. She has José Serebrier to accompany, an old stager in this work who has already recorded it with Michael Guttman.

But for those who may not share this sense of the explicit there’s a more aristocratic approach—what I’d call the Szigeti-Totenberg-Bress lineage. Szigeti is best represented by the live performance with Mengelberg (Music & Arts CD720) though the premiere recording he made with Charles Munch in Paris is a powerful document in its own right. Totenberg recorded it in Vienna in 1961 with Golschmann on Vanguard 08404671. And Hyman Bress made a magnificent recording with the Prague Symphony under the much under-rated Jindřích Rohan in 1967 (Supraphon). All three adhere more closely to the more expressively “neutral” if I can put it that way. Thus Bress can seem to underplay the opening—but not a bit of it; he is magnificently in control of the rhetoric, and the pacing, of a superficially discursive opening movement. Totenberg plays the work, violinistically, better than it’s ever been played on disc; his accompaniment is not as imaginative as some others but his is a central name in the discography of this work. Szigeti of course is wonderful and again he makes no attempt to turn the concerto into a Hebraic vehicle; Mengelberg’s support is galvanic, though not as good as Rohan’s in the finale. Of course there are other recordings but Menuhin’s, for example, hasn’t quite stood the test of time.

The Suite Hébraïque is once again a vehicle for Schiff’s expressive certainties. She plays with maximum commitment and real eloquence. But turn to Bress and one finds him rather faster in the Rapsodie, his rubati subtly deployed and his tone multi-variegated. It’s Bress and Rohan who are more in tune with the dynamic contours of the second movement Processional—Schiff and Serebrier could have sculpted things rather more imaginatively here. And there are one or two sticky moments in the finale—awkward sounding after the command of Bress. Baal Shem is of a piece with Schiff’s playing throughout—committed and generous expression allied to fine technical command.

No complaints about the sound quality. Naxos has captured this orchestra and recording location before and does so again in exemplary fashion. This is a fine budget price disc sporting quality performances.

Review by Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International

Ernest Bloch at Allmusic
Ernest Bloch at Wiki

Zina Schiff at Allmusic

Zina Schiff, violin
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
José Serebrier, conductor

In memory of H.B. Markin
Recorded at Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, from 28th to 30th March, 2006

Tracklist:

Violin Concerto (1938)
1. I. Allegro deciso (20:09)
2. II. Andante (6:11)
3. III. Deciso (12:00)

Baal Shem (Three Pictures of Chassidic Life)
for Violin Solo and Orchestra (1923)
4. I. Vidui (Contrition) (3:15)
5. II. Nigun (Improvisation) (6:27)
6. III. Simchat Torah (Rejoicing) (4:53)

Suite Hébraïque for Violin Solo and Orchestra (1952)
7. I. Rapsodie (6:40)
8. II. Processional: Andante con moto (2:30)
9. III. Affirmation: Maestoso (3:56)

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Bloch, Ernest / Works for Violin and Orchestra - Zina Schiff (violin)

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DR log

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log date: 2017-04-21 18:10:17

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Analyzed: Bloch, Ernest / Works for Violin and Orchestra - Zina Schiff (violin), Royal Scottish National Orchestra, José Serebrier
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

DR Peak RMS Duration Track
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================================================================================

All thanks to original releaser - quivive

More interesting music in My Blog

Ernest Bloch: Symphony in E flat; Macbeth; 2 Interludes; 3 Jewish Poems; In Memoriam (1997)
David Towse, violin; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Dalia Atlas

Ernest Bloch - America; Concerto Grosso No.1 (2012)
Seattle Symphony, conducted by Gerard Schwarz; Patricia Michaelian, piano