Gidon Kremer plays 20th century composers
CD 1
Sergey PROKOFIEV
Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor Op. 80 [30:00]
Scherzo, vivacissimo, from Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major Op. 19 (transcription for violin and piano) [4:05]
Sonata for Two Violins in C major Op. 56 [16:14]
Ladislav KUPKOVIC (b.1936) Souvenir [4:23]
CD 2
Kara KARAYEV (1918-1982) Concerto for Violin and Orchestra [19:21]
Vadim SALMANOV (1912-1978) Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 [14:18]
Arnold SCHOENBERG Fantasy for Violin and Piano. [7:45]
Anton WEBERN Four Pieces Op. 7 1910 [4:26]
Karl-Heinz STOCKHAUSEN Tierkreis excerpts (Aquarius, Gemini, Pisces, Libra, Sagittarius, Leo, Aquarius) [9:03]
CD 3
Vladimir MARTYNOV (b.1946) Come in! for violin and ensemble
[30:34]
Arthur-Vincent LOURIÉ (1892-1996) Concerto da Camera
for Violin and String Orchestra [30:04]
Gidon Kremer (violin)
Oleg Maisenberg (piano); Maria Bondarenko (piano); Yuri Smirnov (piano); Tatiana
Grindenko (violin II in Martynov); Mikhael Muntyan (celesta in Martynov);
German Chamber Philharmonic Society/Gidon Kremer; Moscow Philharmonic Society
Soloists/Vladimir Kozhukar; USSR State TV and Radio Symphony Orchestra/Yuri
Bashmet.
rec. live, 1967, 1970, 1974, 1976, 1977, 1988, 1990, 1992. ADD
Historic Russian Archive Edition
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 9242 [3 CDs: 54:42 + 54:53 + 60:38] 
These recordings from Kremer’s long-distant Soviet years were made for radio
broadcast use. Audiences are present – sometimes unmistakably so. They have
been licensed to Brilliant Classics by Gostelradiofund. They bear out Kremer’s
repute as an artist who drives the priests of convention and received wisdom
from the temple. They are as vivid as fear and as sharply etched as a smashed
pane. His Prokofiev Sonata No. 1 combines a raw and rasping grip with real
tenderness of touch and tenderness. There is some extraordinarily delicate
and quiet playing from Oleg Maisenberg and Kremer; this is magnificent in
the skeletal third movement. Kremer and Yuri Smirnov almost makes you forget
the orchestral witchery of the First Violin Concerto. Kremer is joined by
Tatiana Grindenko (Kremer’s wife) in the black seduction of the Sonata for
Two Violins. Kupkovic’s Souvenir (1971) is a really toothsome little
miniature, redolent of Sibelius’s Humoresques with a dash or two of
Kreisler and circus high-wire.
Karayev has been recorded by Naxos,
Russian
Revelation and Azerbaijan
International. Russian Disc has also recorded his delightfully imaginative
ballet scores as has Delos on DRD 2009. His Violin Concerto has grown on me
since I first reviewed
it in 1999. It is a work of Bergian dissonance that in its textures is tissuey
yet overwhelmingly intense and romantic in the manner of the Walton, Schuman
and Frankel concertos. In the finale it blitzes along with jagged, blood-curdling
energy. His 1965 Third Symphony is reportedly dissonant. There are at least
three recordings including the Naxos. There is also a Melodiya LP of his World
War II First Symphony (1943) but the Second (1946) awaits its first recording.
It would be good to hear and appraise these two works.
Vadim Salmanov is best known for his four symphonies recorded by Mravinsky.
His Second Violin Sonata is from 1962. The music gives the impression of having
been stropped to an excoriating razor edge. The final Presto has the eldritch,
wildly sprayed corrosive acid of a Prokofiev scherzo … and then some: jazz
and sulphuric acid.
Kremer is well suited to Schoenberg’s dissonant Fantasy op. 47 in all its
rasping drama and mercurial waywardness. The notes tell us that the Fantasy
was written in Los Angeles. Webern’s four super-short wispy miniatures are
delicate yet murderous waifs. CD2 ends with some Stockhausen: seven of the
twelve movements entitled Tierkreis or Zodiac. It’s for two
violins and is music of the finest filigree thread with distinct Japanese
twists and turns. Fleeting moments suggest a link with Hovhaness.
The last disc sets out two works of substance and ambition. Vladimir Martynov
was initially something of an avant-gardista. He wrote a rock opera
St Francis of Assisi for his rock group Boomerang! After studying the
folk music of the Caucasus, exploring Russian Orthodox chant and researching
theology and philosophy his music underwent a Damascene conversion. Thus his
1988 Come in! is a six-movement half-hour violin concerto. The strings
and the violin contemplate beauty in tones very redolent of the Beethoven
Violin Concerto. Add to this sparse and completely consonant punctuation from
celesta and percussion. One may occasionally think of Pachelbel’s Canon
and the prayerfully meditative aspects of Bruch No. 1. Again an audience is
obviously present and its applause is preceded by spoken words - what I take
to be the “Come in!” signalling the end of the work. As for the title it can
be found in the words of Ioann Lestvichnik. It refers to the voice behind
the door at the peak of the stairway to Heaven inviting the pilgrim soul to
enter.
We know Lourié from another Brilliant
Classics disc. His Concerto da Camera dates from his American years;
he went there in 1941. It was his last orchestral work. It is played here
by a German orchestra. Again it is in six movements. The music certainly has
a chamber feel but other impressions crowd in: Schnittke’s aggressive neo-baroque
and Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, There’s a tender Intermezzo. The
violin’s voice is piercingly immediate and keen as a razor when it is not
caught in rapt contemplation. Hunted tension and drama come into play in the
Epilogo. It all ends controversially in a baritonal murmur from the
strings.
These three discs equate to CDs 7-9 from the 10-disc Brilliant Classics Kremer
survey (8712).
The rather wonderful adorning notes are by Ates Orga – a Prince among writers
about music. Here he is very much on form.
This is an intriguing and often refreshingly provocative collection.
Rob Barnett
Intriguing and often refreshingly provocative.