Notes and Editorial Reviews
Vulnerability and ebullience … do not miss this.
This live recording documents the most passionate and intense reading of Elgar’s marvellous concerto I have heard in recent years.
Gil Shaham is a perfect soloist for Elgar’s sprawling Romantic concerto. A supreme technician, he is also a wonderfully soulful artist. Both qualities are amply demonstrated in his numerous recordings, and especially in his readings of the Brahms concerto. That Deutsche Grammophon ever let him go is a scandal.
Fortunately for lovers of fine violin playing, Shaham has set up his own label and continues to issue recordings of repertoire he cares about. Though it comes uncoupled, this recording of the Elgar concerto
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is more than worth the modest asking price of the Canary Classics disc.
Shaham’s first entry after the orchestral ritornello is quietly understated, but engagingly inflected. He shapes each phrase of the solo line with care and imaginative flair – now quietly ruminative, now longing, now triumphantly extrovert. Simple passages that link thematic fragments take on new meaning under his bow. The slow movement in particular is marvellous, Shaham enchanting with the delicacy of his bowing, finely graded pianissimo and ravishing lyrical outpourings. There are a couple of rhetorical stretchings of note lengths in the finale that may bother some, but his virtuosic despatch of the movement’s fireworks is breathtaking and the cadenza flows naturally like an inner monologue. Always there is sincerity and feeling behind the notes.
Zinman and the Chicago Symphony are fantastic partners. Zinman’s care for balances ensures a transparency of sound that allows Elgar’s striking orchestration to be heard to best advantage. Solo contributions from winds and horns are superb, a testament to the virtuosity of this fine orchestra. The climaxes have plenty of heft and the orchestra is capable of the utmost delicacy too, as in the opening of the slow movement.
In some ways this recording reminds me of Perlman's underrated performance on Deutsche Grammophon, with Barenboim at the head of the same orchestra. The performance is similarly conceived and Shaham and Zinman take only seconds more than Perlman and Barenboim in each movement. If anything, Shaham’s is the better performance, for the greater shading of the violin line, and Zinman’s more transparent view of the score, though the DG recording has the greater overall feeling of Romantic opulence. Like Nigel Kennedy, Shaham gets to the heart of this concerto, but takes less languorous tempi in doing so.
Perhaps the more apposite comparison is between Shaham’s live recording and James Ehnes’ recording, also live, with the Philharmonia under Sir Andrew Davis. Ehnes’ disc won a 2008 Gramophone Award and has been praised by Ian Lace among others. Ehnes' recording is wonderful - there is no denying it. His tone is consistently centred and full, and his virtuosity is supreme. But so is Shaham’s and, deploying a greater variety of tone, he brings to the concerto an emotional dimension that is lacking in Ehnes’ performance. Ehnes’ performance is clear-eyed and unsentimental but the solo line is supported by an emotionally charged Philharmonia under Davis. By contrast, on this disc Shaham takes the emotional lead, and finds sympathy on the podium and among the ranks of the Chicago Symphony. Both accounts are similarly paced, though Shaham’s seems to me to have greater forward momentum, perhaps because of its emotional intensity. Elgarians are fortunate to witness the appearance of two excellent recordings of the violin concerto in the space of 12 months. Both are fine performances, but Shaham’s vulnerability and ebullience make his the recording I shall return to more often.
I downloaded this recording from emusic and although this makes it impossible for me to comment definitively on the sound of the CD, the compressed sound of the mp3 files is natural and well balanced. Audience noise is hardly discernable – except for the rapturous applause that erupts at the performance’s close.
If you have never responded to Elgar’s concerto before, this is the account that might just sway you. Shaham’s disc belongs with Nigel Kennedy’s collaboration with Handley at the head of the list of stereo recordings of this masterpiece. Do not miss this.
-- Tim Perry, MusicWeb International
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Works on This Recording
1.
Concerto for Violin in B minor, Op. 61 by Sir Edward Elgar
Performer:
Gil Shaham (Violin)
Conductor:
David Zinman
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1909-1910; England
Length: 48 Minutes 25 Secs.
Featured Sound Samples
Sound Samples
Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 61: I. Allegro
Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 61: II. Andante
Violin Concerto in B Minor, Op. 61: III. Allegro molto
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