This CD and DVD set features recordings
by one of the UK’s outstanding young
violinists, Ruth Palmer, of two major
works for the violin by Dmitri Shostakovich.
The booklet notes contain some of Ruth
Palmer’s personal responses to the two
works, but for in-depth descriptions,
historical facts and analyses readers
will have to look elsewhere. She does
put the works nicely into the context
of Shostakovich’s life, but in many
ways this is very much the ‘debut recording’
and the notes make sure we are told
all about Ruth Palmer’s career to the
present day.
Shostakovich’s first Violin Concerto
is an excellent showcase for a good
soloist, with the solo violin being
almost constantly engaged, and Shostakovich
making no apologies for any potential
fragility for the instrument over an
entire symphonic orchestra. Palmer shows
herself more than capable of pitting
her powerful tone against the massed
forces of the Philharmonia in the Scherzo,
and Benjamin Wallfisch pulls no punches
at any point in the proceedings. Take
the opening of the Passacaglia movement,
with full tympani thwacks and brass
unleashed. My principal comparison was
another soloist’s move onto the international
stage. De-railed only by his own ambitions
as a conductor, Jaap van Zweden recorded
this concerto with the Netherlands Radio
Philharmonic conducted by Edo de Waart
in 1996 (BMG Classics), appearing on
the cover in cool shades and looking
ready to take on Nigel Kennedy – picture
disc and all. The orchestra, while pungent
and characterful, doesn’t quite match
the eloquence of the Philharmonia, but
as a soloist he digs deep, and carries
more of a message in this most moving
of movements. This is one point at which
the balance is pushed a little in the
new recording, and Ruth Palmer vanishes
under a duvet of violins more than once.
This no doubt reflects the realities
of a concert-hall performance, but straining
to hear the soloist is a distracting
activity. I had to make the comparison
during that incredible cadenza as well.
Palmer is forceful and dynamic, but
I agree more with Van Zweden’s broader
approach, building more emphatically
to climaxes and really taking the pp
dynamics to a whisper.
I don’t wish to carp about details.
This is really a very fine performance,
and with such a superb recording A/B
comparisons are always going to be a
subjective toss-up. What I do wish to
avoid is becoming swept up in the hype
which the best press quotes seem keen
to propagate. Ruth Palmer is a wonderful
violinist to be sure, but what might
be the differences in 15 years time
I wonder?
Moving on to the later Violin Sonata
I took Shlomo Mintz and Viktoria Postnikova’s
1992 Erato CD as comparison. Having
become used to this duo’s more ongoing
flow, I was at first less than overwhelmed
by Palmer’s opening. Her approach seems
to be ‘old man suffering’ rather than
‘old man poking at old age with a stick’,
and both players miss out on some of
the wit hidden in the darkness of the
first movement as a result. Mintz’s
throaty violin sound in the opening
of the Allegretto impresses,
and Palmer is deeply searching as well,
though not quite equalling the sheer
violence of Mintz and Postnikova, who
always was quite a lady on stage – even
her page turning has a punishing imperiousness
to it!
Again, we have here a superbly recorded
and marvellous performance, but not
in any way a ‘definitive’ one. Take
the pizzicati which follow the dramatic
opening of the final Largo of
the sonata. Mintz, with the advantage
of a huge concert hall, nonetheless
projects with subtle vibrato and changes
of colour, and when the material opens
out there is a true blossoming of the
violin sound, supported by that passacaglia-like
piano accompaniment. Palmer is good,
but that opening is just a little rounder
and more polite, the pizzicatos a little
less lively sounding – elliptical and
expressive, but without quite that sense
of unambiguous direction that you get
with Mintz. Her double-stopping is immaculate
however, and on its own terms this performance
is as involving and probing as one could
wish for. The music is excellent and
I must say Alexei Grynyuk is a true
find as an accompanist: it’s only that
last ounce of narrative quality I think
I’m missing. Maybe it’s just me, maybe
it’s a British thing, something she
admits herself in the film. She would
certainly be the ambassador for
all of that languishing non-Prom U.K.
concerto repertoire.
Now we’ve heard the music, let’s watch
the documentary film by Tim Meara, A
People’s Music, in which Ruth travels
to Russia to find out more about the
origins of the music and to discover
what led Shostakovich to write these
two works. I should probably have done
this the other way around, but wanting
to stay objective about a sound recording
and waiting for ‘Eastenders’ to finish
amounts to much of the same thing in
this day and age. In fact, this is a
nicely made, compact summary of Ruth’s
impressions and experiences in Russia,
learning from Dr Felix Andrievsky (listen
out for the story of ‘the two mouses’!)
and from breathing the same air as Shostakovich.
Filmed in black and white, there are
the same red accents and lettering as
the booklet design highlighting important
landmarks, so that there is a fine sense
of design and unity about the whole
thing. Presented with some occasionally
exotic choreography, we get a good sense
of some of the psychology behind the
music, as well as the more familiar
historical references. It’s not perfect
of course: there is a lot of comment
on the Concerto in the early part of
the film followed by musical quotes
from the Sonata, which is a little disconcerting,
and you might find yourself wanting
the editing to be just a little less
busy at times. I’ve probably become
too used to those well-padded BBC documentaries,
for which this would have filled at
least one hour. The wintry Russian imagery
is of course stunning, and we get a
look inside the concert hall where the
concerto was first performed by David
Oistrakh, the St. Petersburg Conservatoire,
Shostakovich’s Dachau – there is a lot
of ground covered in a short space of
time, and this is a very worthwhile
accompaniment to the CD, making one
listen to it with new ears.
So, do I need to start again and revise
my comments about the CD? Well, it wouldn’t
be the objective thing to do, and this
is after all a subjective review. All
I can say is that this on the whole
is an excellent release, and no-one
investing in it will be disappointed.
Ruth Palmer has youth both on her side
and, to a certain extent against her.
She will undoubtedly bring greater depths
and heights to this kind of repertoire
in the future. Her technical achievement
is nonetheless remarkable, and these
recordings and performances are indeed
stunning. Put them up against the alternatives
in your own collection, learn some things
you’d never realised before, and then
make up your own mind….
Dominy Clements
Ruth Palmer (Violin) 
DVD
for
details
