Two
ripe Romantic sonatas are here but one of them travels
disguised. The Rachmaninov Cello Sonata was arranged for
viola by Vadim Borisovsky and is duly performed on that
instrument by Yuri Zhislin. He then performs the Rachmaninoff
Vocalise on both violin and viola (overdubbed when playing
unison) and drops gadgetry for a run-through of the Strauss
Sonata on his accustomed fiddle.
The
Strauss is a gorgeously ripe effusion, not unlike the First
Horn Concerto in its chest-bursting lyricism. It can take
restraint but most players will want to plunge straight
in. Here I feel a discrepancy between Zhislin and his excellent
partner George-Emmanuel Lazaridis; the former’s relative
reticence and restraint tend to come into a degree of conflict
with the latter’s more openly romantic instincts in this
work. It can make for creative results. Nevertheless I
was more drawn to pianist than violinist on rather too
many occasions and that is a little more worrying. Some
of Zhislin’s expressive devices in the first movement sound,
to my ears, a shade disbelieving; the temperature is consistently
low. Comparison with Heifetz/Brooks Smith and Heifetz/Sandor,
not to mention Ricci/Bussotti (now there was an
entertaining pianist) and Neveu/Beck, tends to make the
case for this newcomer’s excessive caution. Let me just
close by saying that Zhislin does not do enough with the
line in the second movement to keep things, as Lionel Tertis
once put it, “alive” and that the over cautious opening
to the finale is fatally deadpan. Where is Neveu’s exultance,
Heifetz’s burnished throb, and Ricci’s devilry? Still,
if you’re sated by overt violinstics and prefer low-wattage
maybe Zhislin is your man.
The
Rachmaninoff is really as much a calling card of Zhislin’s
credentials as a violist as it is a must-have performance.
After all why not just pick up the Cello Sonata, something
I always feel about the rather more tonally distinct Franck
Violin/Cello sonata arrangement. Zhislin displays the same
qualities of restraint and a certain dignified reserve
here and is certainly not a player to wear his heart on
anything resembling a sleeve. Still his playing is expert
in its way and again the ensemble is good. Lazaridis tends
to steal the show, not least in his Rach 2 intimations
in the first movement and in the gallop of the scherzo.
The Vocalise arrangement is an amusing encore and affectionately
done.
There
are trilingual notes. The recording is very slightly cloudy
but I wouldn’t make too much of it. The programme is well
constructed but its romantic instincts are not really fully
met.
Jonathan
Woolf
Yuri Zhislin (violin and
viola*)
