Wednesday 7 July 2010

In classical music, fame is somewhat fickle and unpredictable. Mediocre conductors can become "famous". Talented violinists and pianists can become international stars. Exceptional pianists and violinists can remain relatively unknown as, for more obvious reasons, can potentially famous conductors.

These thoughts on listening to Willem Noske (who?) playing Mozart's 4th and 5th violin concertos, plus Henriƫtte Bosmans's (who?) Concert Piece for Violin and Orchestra.

Mozart was only 19 when he wrote K 218 and K 219 in 1775. It is thus somewhat ridiculous to hear them played by Yehudi Menuhin and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by von Karajan (for example) or Isaac Stern and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Willem Noske is ideal; accurate intonation, and happy to project this young man's music. Too many cadenzas -- which may be historically accurate, but they do jar. No wonder that, after Mendelssohn, many composers took to dictating their own cadenzas. In these live performances, K 218 dates from 1940 (Concertgebouw Orchestra) and K 219 from 1971 (Residentie Orchestra). I like these appropriate performances a lot.

Ms Bosman lived from 1895 until 1952. Her concerto is by no means nondescript; in fact, it is a lot more interesting than most 20th century violin concertos. Alas, unknown and probably never played today; this live performance dates from 29 September 1962. The finale maybe is not up to the rest of the work, but that tends to be a feature of many concerto finales. Off-hand, only the Shostakovich 1st concerto, and the Elgar concerto, have 20th century finales that I quite look forward to.

1 comment:

Lee said...

Yes Harry. WHo?