AWARDS SHORTLIST
ac Christian Tetzlaff vn abTanja Tetzlaff vc Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Paavo Järvi Ondine (ODE1423-2 • 72’)
The dedication on this album reads ‘In Memoriam Lars Vogt’ – and that gives it a special resonance. Christian Tetzlaff and his sister Tanja Tetzlaff made music with him together and independently on many occasions and in one way and another they wanted that reflected in their choices.
The sibling symbiosis is, of course, especially welcome in the Brahms Double Concerto where their seamless interaction (be it shared or conflicted) and instinctive dovetailing of lines really adds something to the feeling of spontaneity in the performance. Their colleague and friend Paavo Järvi is also key in that respect encouraging a super-incisive and, where appropriate, trenchant dynamism from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. In the opening movement it is confrontational alluding to attempts to mend the spat between Brahms and his friend and muse Joseph Joachim. I always love that the cello’s opening proclamation, confident and defiant, conceals a darker purpose. And so it grows in a sweeping symphonic argument full of drama and incident. We’ll get through this, it seems to say.
And then, paradoxically, harmony is restored in the reassuring warmth of unison octaves as the slow movement rekindles a deep and abiding kinship. Two voices, two Tetzlaffs, as one. More than a glimmer of optimism looking towards the playful sparring of the finale (think the finale of the Second Symphony) driven with exciting ebullience by Järvi.
The Viotti Violin Concerto No 22 might seem an odd bedfellow (it pulled me up short) until we learn that it was a favourite of both Brahms and Joachim. ‘One of my very special raptures’, said Brahms. Christian Tetzlaff revels in its unapologetic showmanship and bravura again playing to the music’s sense of total spontaneity – of something created in the playing of it.
The gorgeous Dvo∑ák miniature Silent Woods is Tanja Tetzlaff’s parting gift to Lars Vogt. They often played Dvo∑ák together (including the Cello Concerto when Vogt began conducting) and the inherent sadness (or should that be wistfulness) of the piece is as always
1414 GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE 2024
tempered by the composer’s gentle geniality. Such guileless music. And yet, a quiet profundity.
Terrific disc, then, and the best kind of tribute from three exceptional musicians to one of their own. Edward Seckerson
Britten Violin Concerto, Op 15a. Two Piecesb. Reveillec. Suite, Op 6c Isabelle Faust vn bBoris Faust va bc Alexander Melnikov pf aBavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša Harmonia Mundi (HMM90 2668 • 64’) a Recorded live at the Isarphilharmonie, Munich, October 28 & 29, 2021
Hot on the heels of Baiba Skride’s exhilarating account of Britten’s Violin
Concerto comes this one from Isabelle Faust in Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony on superb form; it is coupled with the earlier works for violin and piano plus premiere recordings of two fascinating little pieces for violin, viola and piano written by the 16-year-old schoolboy in 1929, which are very rewarding in themselves. To find another recording released within a month of Skride’s studio version rather underlines the point that this powerful score – not much recorded before 2000 – now seems to be getting under the skin of today’s leading international players with remarkable frequency, most recently Ehnes, Frang, Hadelich and Skride.
Faust has impeccable credentials when it comes to the central 20th-century repertoire and she sails into the opening of Britten’s Concerto with serene confidence and instant stylistic empathy. A fascinating aspect of this disc is the focus on the Catalan violinist Antonio Brosa (1894-1979), who gave the Concerto its premiere at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1940 with John Barbirolli. Both the Suite, Op 6 (1936) and the concert study Reveille (1937) were also written for Brosa, and there are vivid and virtuosic qualities in the writing that inescapably seem to reflect the personality which emerges clearly in the Concerto. With pianist Alexander Melnikov as luxury casting, these are definitive performances in beautiful sound from Berlin’s Teldex Studio.
In the Concerto, Faust digs deep and her tone has a visceral immediacy that goes straight to the heart of the music. She is unafraid and unflinching, and vividly unleashes the passion in these pages with mesmeric power, symbiotically partnered by Jakub Hr≤≈a. Faster and more frightening than Skride in the demonic ‘dance-of-death’ Scherzo, Faust also seems tauter in the moving Passacaglia finale. The tension of a live performance genuinely registers – there are moments here when I was on the edge of my seat – and the finale’s climax is completely overwhelming, its denouement insistently gripping. Not since Mark Lubotsky’s classic 1970 Decca account with Britten at the helm in Snape Maltings have I felt such naked intensity in this great work – but Faust’s sheer emotional commitment and musical finesse, as captured in stunningly integrated sound by the Bavarian engineers, now takes her right to the top of my modern tree. Geraint Lewis Selected comparisons: Lubotsky, ECO, Britten
London 417 308-2LM (8/71, 10/89)
Skride, ORF Vienna RSO, Alsop Orfeo C220021 (3/24)
Rachmaninov Four Piano Concertos. Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op 43 Yuja Wang pf Los Angeles Philharmonic / Gustavo Dudamel DG (486 4759 b; 486 4943 c 6 • 154’) Recorded live at Walt Disney Hall, Los Angeles, February 2023 Available to view on DG Stage+ at stage-plus.com
Make no mistake, this is a classy release. Hardly surprising that, given the artists involved, but I headline the cliché because I shall be expressing a number of reservations, and I don’t want them to loom disproportionately large. Put it this way: anyone drawing up a canon of the finest recordings of the Rachmaninov concertos would be thought odd if they did not include this latest bid.
The First Concerto strikes me as especially fine. Alongside Wang’s signature fiery attack and uber-clarity at supersonic tempos, her phrasing is spacious and shapely, the broader ebb and flow always persuasive. Her tremendous power is all the more effective for being kept in reserve and released in long waves as well as momentary darts and quivers. Cadenzas and interludes are by turns dreamy and drastic, the climaxes generous and perfectly placed, never degenerating into a shouting match. The slow movement is nicely improvisatory, never self-gratifyingly wayward. Dudamel has gramophone.co.uk
