Bruch reviews

Walton’s vibrant Viola Concerto is best heard in his final, pared-down 1961 scoring. That’s the choice of viola player Nils Mönkemeyer and conductor Markus Poschner, whose wonderfully clear account is gilded by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s spangled brass and refined winds. The German virtuoso lavishes affection on the opening Andante commodo, bringing out all its sensuous melancholy in one, long-breathed utterance. 

Salvatore Accardo may lack the volcanic intensity of Isaac Stern in the Bruch and Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s divine spirituality in the Beethoven, yet he produces a ravishing sound of captivating tonal finesse.

Julian Haylock

Bruch spent most of his long career in the shadow of his First Violin Concerto’s supreme popularity. As a result, a great deal of highly attractive music fell by the wayside. It wasn’t until Itzhak Perlman recorded the Second Concerto (twice) for EMI in the 1970s/’80s, and Salvatore Accardo all of Bruch’s violin concertante works for Philips around the same time, that most of us realised what we had been missing.

This remastering of a quadraphonic LP presents us with two popular violin concertos in succulent performances, with Mintz producing the richest violin tones and Abbado answering in kind.

Michael Tanner

Bruch’s chamber music may lack the sheer genius of Mendelssohn, Schumann or Brahms, yet it is expertly written, eloquently structured and intuitively sustains the genre’s essential intimacy of tone. The First Quartet, an early work dating from the mid-1850s, takes its lead from middle-period Beethoven – the lyrico-dramatic concision of the Harp and Serioso Quartets rather than the temporal expansion of the first two Razumovskys – and is played to the hilt by the Goldner Quartet.

The orchestral opening of the Lalo comes as quite a shock, with heavy reverberation blurring detail, and leaving the final chord hanging over into Renaud Capuçon’s entry. It makes it quite difficult at times to judge the performance, although, when the music is quiet and less heavily scored, the sound is better balanced, and still warm. Those who have experienced the new Philharmonie de Paris concert hall in the flesh report much the same, and that it may need time to settle.

A prodigy who recorded the Mozart Concertos with Claudio Abbado at the age of 15, David Garrett then moved into crossover repertoire but has always been keen on expanding the audiences for ‘serious’ classical music. This recording is part of that mission: these performances, well recorded in Tel Aviv – but no details of precisely when and where – will certainly draw in his many fans. There is more to be had out of both concertos though, in terms of sensitivity of rubato and tonal variety.

The Korngold Violin Concerto, having evaded the mainstream for decades, has become a firm favourite among younger soloists; Arabella Steinbacher’s is the latest of numerous new recordings to emerge in the past few years. Unfortunately, despite her technically excellent playing, this account falls into all the work’s usual traps, mostly relating to its emotional zeitgeist, or a misunderstanding of it.

These two 19th-century concertos, both composed for Joseph Joachim, make for a very attractive coupling. The much-recorded Bruch receives a passionate and strongly compelling performance, with Julia Fischer delivering a dazzlingly brilliant and technically flawless account of the solo part. It’s easy to take such familiar music for granted, but the refreshing thing about Fischer’s interpretation is its avoidance of mannerism. The Finale is especially fluent, the Hungarian-inflected rhythms dispatched with dynamism.

A coupling that deserves its near-legendary status: here is virtuosity without ostentation, and a loving way with the music at every turn. The few rough edges serve only to highlight Menuhin’s humanity. Martin Cotton

 Sarah Chang has always shown excellent judgement in choosing orchestral partners for her concerto recordings. These versions of the Bruch and Brahms are no exception, the Dresden Philharmonic under Kurt Masur producing an oak-veneered sound that provides an almost ideal backcloth for Chang’s powerfully projected playing.

The recording, too, is admirable: although Chang is placed quite forward in relation to the orchestra, the engineering is sufficiently subtle to allow for a fluid balance between soloist and orchestra. 

The Berlin Philharmonic’s European Concerts, as the annual celebration of its formation on 1 May 1882, offer a snapshot of the orchestra’s current music-making.

As such, the 2008 concert at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow reflects how, despite the (over-exaggerated by the media) hiccups, Simon Rattle’s tenure at the helm has bedded-in.

The programme combines the traditionally core repertoire of Beethoven and Bruch with Stravinsky, while the performances reveal an orchestra and conductor enjoying their journey together.