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ALBERTO GINASTERA (1916-83) Violin Concerto*(1963) [26.37] BELA BARTÓK (1881-1945) Violin Sonata** (op. Posth) (1904) [27.09] *Salvatore Accardo (violin)/Hopkins Center Orchestra/Mario di Bonaventura **Salvatore Accardo (violin) / Noel Lee (piano) recorded 1968 - live recordings DYNAMIC CDS 110 1 [53.56]

 


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Ginastera reveals himself as a natural successor to Paganini (but with more profound musical interest) in this ferociously challenging concerto. The orchestra is characteristically supplemented and is used like a repertory company drawing on different forces for each section. The orchestra is supplemented with six different groups of percussion instruments. The strings comprise 16 firsts and 16 seconds, 12 violas and 12 cellos with six double basses.

Starting as it means to go on it challenges the soloist in the most exposed of ways with 4'26" of unaccompanied cadenza. The orchestra then bursts in like a wave of chaotic energy blasting and thundering like the strongest vitriolic climax by William Schuman. There is plenty of impressively unrelenting darting display. Scudding feathery playing rambles over quiet orchestral violins intoning an angular melody. The strange squirming microscopic amoeba of the andante [6] register strongly. The adagio is the tormented heart of the work. The following scherzo pianissimo is a study in strange tonalities and scuttling horror. The finale is haunted by ghosts of Paganini 'as if the shadow of the great violinist were hovering over the orchestra.' Through a fantastic landscape peopled with creatures and weird plants the violin rushes headlong as if possessed by a contagious feral panic. The applause at the end is sincerely deserved. For all of its toughness this is a work of attractions and intrigue.

I first got to hear this work in a no less impressive performance though in markedly poorer sound on an off-air tape of a performance by Hyman Bress with the Bamberg SO conducted by V Avdrakovitch. The recording capably captures the barely audible to the most exultant of clamours. The thirty year age of the tape and its analogue origins present no problem; with hiss being hardly detectable.

Here the concerto is tracked into 11 segments (8 for the first movement; 1 for the second and 2 for the final movement) making for ease of access and analysis by repeated hearing.

The Sonata was written during Bartók's final year at the Budapest Conservatoire. It would have been No 1 but that was accorded to the 1920 sonata. This could have been a Brucknerian No. 0 but here it is shown as simply Op Posth. This is a work of drenched romanticism - not at all the Bartók of the Concerto for Orchestra or the later piano concertos or violin concerto no 2. The notes claim a Brahmsian romanticism and I would agree with that up to a point but it is offset by a fresher folksy nationalism.

What an interesting contrast. The Ginastera is work of the impressively possessed avant garde. The Bartok is a work of refulgent romance and glowing lustre. I thought (in the Bartók) of the first violin sonata by John Ireland and a little of the rather wonderful first sonata by Thomas Dunhill. The Hungarian spirit bursts, swirls and floods the scene at II 1.54. A Germanic sternness overhangs the Vivace finale. This is plagued by Hungarian fireworks and febrile bacchanalian power which relents into restful romance only to return centre stage in the Hungarian accents of the succulently dashing closing minutes. The finale overstays its welcome and would have been perfect at five minutes rather than 8.44.

Those normally off-put by the more forbidding aspects of Bartók must hear this piece. It has also been recorded by Susanne Stanzeleit (violin) and Gusztáv Fenyö (piano) on ASV CDDCA982 - a recording I have not heard. It is coupled on ASV with other pieces of Bartók's chamber music. The Ginastera and Bartok coupling make for a tartly satisfying contrast and both are works of considerable ambition and, in the case of the Ginastera considerable satisfying achievement. To the best of my knowledge this is the recording premiere of the Ginastera and as a work it is not otherwise available.

Accardo is more than a full match for both works and his technique (and heart) is daringly invested in the Ginastera which despite its challenging language I commend freely as a work of musical splendours and boundary-liberated imagination.

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

(Ginastera)

(Bartók)

Reviewer

Rob Barnett

(Ginastera)

(Bartók)

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