Part Violin

The title of ECM's release of works by three composers born in the former Soviet Union perfectly captures the mood of the CD – it is truly mysterious. Although more than half a century separates the first of these pieces from the most recent, they share a sense of otherness that defies easy explanation. The pieces are not so much mysterious in the sense of being eerie (although there are several moments that might raise the hairs on the back of your neck if you were listening alone in the dark); they are unsettling because they raise more questions than they answer.

The New Seasons referred to in the title here are the so-called American Four Seasons, the Violin Concerto No. 2 of Philip Glass, which has even less of a connection to Vivaldi's model than do Astor Piazzolla's Buenos Aires Four Seasons and other works that take Vivaldi as a point of reference. The work is in eight sections, but which ones are supposed to represent which season is left up to the listener. It's really a typical but unusually effective example of late-period Glass, with the composer's usual textures intact but lots of harmonic motion. Part of the interest here lies in hearing Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, long champions of minimalism's Baltic branch, tackle a work by one of the leaders of Western minimalism. The American Four Seasons get a treatment that's a bit rougher than usual, but then Kremer turns around (after a Pärt girls' choir interlude) and delivers pristinely smooth, glassy textures in Giya Kancheli's Ex contrario. The program closes with a fascinating little melody by Japanese rock musician and film composer Shigeru Umebayashi, a daring and effective choice.

This collection of recordings illuminates two different sides of violinist Tasmin Little’s accomplished playing. While the Brahms and Sibelius Concertos are a testament to her technical skill and breadth of expression, the Pärt works display a more pared-back approach, making full use of Little’s pure and resonant tone.

Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1812–65) was one of the leading musicians of his day, a friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn, and for Joseph Joachim ‘the greatest violinist I ever heard’. But the popular encore pieces by which Ernst is remembered today represent only a fraction of his output. This second CD – in a series of six presenting his complete violin works for the first time – combines brilliant display and expressive melody: the Otello Fantasy and Rossini Variations show Ernst developing Paganini’s inheritance, and the Boléro, Two Romances and Pensées fugitives show why he was such a favourite in Parisian salons.

It’s hard to imagine performances of Bach’s violin concertos like those of Nigel Kennedy or, now, these by Daniel Hope, passing muster two generations ago. But since then, Bach’s model, Vivaldi, has enjoyed a second rebirth through the midwifery of period instrumentalists who have sped up the tempos of his fast movements and shone light through the ingeniously transparent textures of his slow ones, all the while employing a wider range of colors than hitherto imagined.

For newcomers to the work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, this generous two-disc collection of performances from EMI's archive would be a good place to start exploring. The authoritative Pärt performances would probably be the premiere releases on ECM, produced by Manfred Eicher, but these performances are all of a very high quality and there is a handful of works that ECM has never recorded. Pärt's most famous works are here; there are three versions each of the ever-popular Fratres (for violin and piano, string orchestra and harp, and string quartet) and Summa (for mixed voices, string orchestra, and string quartet), as well as the version of Spiegel in Spiegel for violin and piano, Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten for string orchestra and bell, and the concerto for two violins and prepared piano, Tabula rasa.

Although these are unquestionably performances of impeccable musicality and taste, I found that Goldberg's tendency to underplay his part at times led to a little disappointment. In the A minor Sonatina of 1816, with its almost obsessional pathos, the two instrumentalists are models of classical purity, but the Pole is a bit static in the slow movement. Their hypersensitivity and immaculately polished use of tone are employed to keep the music within limited emotional confines. Goldberg's reticent way with the A major Sonata-Duo in particular makes the piece emerge as rather small-scale. The recorded balance between the two is relaxed and pleasing in these pieces.

There's no question that everybody should have a copy of Berg's Violin Concerto. The most beautiful violin, the most moving, the most profound, and the most transcendent violin concerto of the twentieth century, Berg's violin concerto To the Memory of an Angel belongs in every civilized home. But which recording should be the one?
The argument could be made that this 2003 recording by violinist Daniel Hope with Paul Watkins conducting the BBC Symphony should be the one.