Viola Concerto

This pair of single-movement viola concertos written for Yuri Bashmet justify his renown. In both, he is able to draw an impressive variety of expressions from his instrument with seeming ease. On the other hand, it's obvious there was a lot of thought and care put into his interpretations. The concertos need thoughtful interpretations by the soloist and the conductor, not because the pieces are necessarily complex in rhythm or harmony, but they are complex in tone and color.

Like his teacher Yehudi Menuhin before him, the artist formerly known as "Nige" proves to be an uncommonly dab performer on the viola. He certainly has the full measure of the 26-year-old Walton's astonishingly mature concerto (unquestionably the finest of the composer's three), penetrating to its bitter-sweet core with devastating emotional candour. Similarly, Kennedy's bitingly intense reading of the yearningly lyrical Violin Concerto earns the warmest plaudits in its characterful involvement and edge-of-seat spontaneity.

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.

Timothy Ridout gives us the opportunity to discover the splendid viola version of Elgar’s famous Cello Concerto – an arrangement approved by the composer, who conducted its premiere in 1930. In addition to this deeply moving work, he gives us a powerful, poetic reading of Bloch’s all too rarely performed Suite for Viola and Orchestra, in which the Swiss composer indulged his fascination with the Orient.

Bartók’s Viola Concerto was the uncompleted work which, soon after this death, Tibor Serly put together from sketches. Now Bartók’s son Péter, with the scholar Paul Neubauer, has re-edited those sketches. Though the differences are small, this first recording of the revised version, superbly played, proves fascinating, sounding closer to the Concerto for Orchestra. With the rich-toned Chinese vila-player Xiao as soloist, that version is here presented alongside Serly’s. The warmly atmospheric Two Pictures and a viola work by Serly make a good coupling.

Tan Dun's Concerto for String Orchestra and Pipa (1999) is a reworking of one of his most popular works, Ghost Opera, written for and recorded by the Kronos Quartet. In this version, the composer's characteristic polystylism – which here includes Chinese folk song, Copland-esque Big Sky music, quotations from Bach, and vocalizations by the orchestra – comes across as a jumble, without much of a strong vision holding the disparate elements together. Pipa virtuoso Wu Man, who appeared on the Kronos recording, plays the concerto with energy and delicacy. She's ably accompanied by the Moscow Soloists, led by Yuri Bashmet. The concerto is followed by Takemitsu's Nostalghia (1987) for violin and string orchestra. Its compositional assurance, clarity, subtly nuanced orchestration, and emotional directness make it all the more striking in contrast to the Tan Dun. Here Bashmet is the impassioned soloist, with Roman Balashov conducting with great sensitivity. The three brief excerpts from Takemitsu's film scores are a pleasant stylistic diversion – light, strongly differentiated character pieces.

For a single-package introduction to the music of William Walton, it would be hard to do better than this two-disc set from EMI. Not only is the selection impeccable (including the First Symphony, Belshazzar's Feast, the violin and viola concertos, plus the Partita, for orchestra), but the performances, with the composer conducting, are, for all intents and purposes, definitive.

Bartok - Violin Concertos 1 & 2, Viola Concerto, etc. - Yehudi Menuhin (2003) {2CD Set EMI Classics rec 1965-1975}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 682 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 329 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 54 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1965-75, 2003 EMI Classics | 7243 5 85487 2 3
Classical / Early 20th Century / Concerto

Compiled from recordings dating from 1965 to 1974, this EMI/Gemini double-disc of Bartók's string concertos and other works features Yehudi Menuhin at the peak of his powers, with support from two important Bartók specialists and their sympathetic orchestras. Menuhin is admirably backed in all the concertos by Antal Dorati and the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and Pierre Boulez and the BBC Symphony Orchestra provide meticulous accompaniment in the two Rhapsodies. The resilient Viola Concerto and the splendid Violin Concerto No. 2 are essential listening, both for their masterful writing and for the vigorous performances Menuhin and Dorati deliver.