My
previous, most recent encounter with Russian violinist Eduard
Grach was a masculine and powerful performance of the Brahms
Concerto, eloquently marshalled by concerto accompanist supreme,
Kondrashin (see
review).
Those for whom biographical matters are helpful, especially
in the case of musicians whose names haven’t travelled as
far as they should, might read that review for some brief
pointers regarding Grach.
This
other disc in RCD’s ‘Russian Violin School’ series is a sonata
programme. We start with an occasionally ponderous and over
vibrated Debussy. This is a tricky work that can trip up
players who over-freight it with heightened expressive devices
and lashings of vibrato. The first movement at least is all
rather fraught, aggressive and un-Gallic. The very forward
recording exaggerates Grach’s instincts. The second movement
is ardent and taken at a good tempo but still rather too
romanticised. Something odd happens in the finale where the
sound spectrum recedes alarmingly. Not sure what happened
there.
Grach
was teamed with Valentin Zhuk for the Honegger Sonatina.
They were both fellow Yamplosky students and good colleagues.
They play with sparkling drive but it’s all too resinous,
and their well-prepared vibrato bulges are too throbbing
in the context, unsettling the line. Nevertheless their tonal
qualities are well matched, and the witty pizzicati of the
finale are well attended to. Certainly the ensemble is first
class and they just about conquer the intonational traps
in the final paragraphs. It’s a fighting performance but
not really in the league of the Oistrakhs, father and son,
whose own performance was both faster and tonally more malleable.
The
Kodály Duo for violin and cello
teams Grach with Evgeni Altman. There’s some succulently
warm phrasing in this taxing work, some fine unison, ensemble
patterns and a sure sense of the work’s architecture. It
won’t efface memories of Heifetz-Piatigorsky, Suk-Navarra
or Gingold-Starker but presents a warm, masculine united
ensemble.
Finally
we turn to the Prokofiev Sonata for two violins with the
violinist’s son Evgeni as partner. Once again this is a rather
resinous reading, acerbic and brittle – though in the context
that’s not entirely inappropriate. This strong communicative
power embraces expressive eloquence and technical assurance
not least in the rustic abrasions of the
Commodo.
It’s a big boned, raw reading and one that is again slower
pretty much all round than the Oistrakhs,
pčre
et fils.
Putting
the sonic considerations to one side these are committed
examples of Grach’s masculine playing.
Jonathan Woolf
Eduard Grach
(violin) 
