Saturday 24 May 2008

Two lots of Bruch's first violin concerto: Vadim Repin with the Berlin Philharmonic under Rattle (Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire -- a video performance) and Sergey Khachatryan with the Cleveland Orchestra under Kurt Masur. Repin was better; he sounded involved with the music and played for all he was worth under the critical eyes of the Moscow audience.

Khachatryan sounded more involved with his violin than with the music, and concentrated on producing a beautiful sound at very broad tempi (the work seemed to go on for ever). Bruch does not have the depth to survive a long-drawn-out traversal. In addition, Khachatryan was given an "American" balance, with the violin too forward and the orchestra a little dim in the background. Khachatryan is a very fine violinist indeed, and I just hope he is not going to go down the modern slow-slow-slow path that so many confuse with deep feeling and profundity.

2 comments:

oisfetz said...

Harry, two more Bruch's firt?. Don't
you ever tired of the same works,over and over again?

Harry Collier said...

Well, yes; if the work is always performed by the same people, it can become repetitive. Otherwise, it's like Don Juan with women; getting to know one woman very well is satisfying, and it's not really advantageous to spend one's life always chasing after something new.

No two performers play Bruch's G minor violin concerto in the same way. It's a very fine concerto, and I am always happy to get to know it better and to discover even better performances of it. This is not true of Max's second concerto, and especially not true of his third.