This recording of the Double stands at a considerable stylistic
remove from the muscular heroics of such lions of the repertoire
as Thibaud/Casals, Heifetz/Feuermann and Oistrakh/Fournier, to
mention only three of the more obvious examples on record. It
stands even at a distinct remove from one of the more recent ventures
– the Julia Fischer/Daniel Müller-Schott Pentatone disc conducted
by Kreizberg.
The Capuçon brothers are established chamber partners and this is the approach
they adopt throughout the Concerto – an emollient, flexible
but essentially small-scaled and intimate performance that baulks
at rhetorical gestures. The opening statements from both
Gautier Capuçon and
the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester
are measured in their approach; the orchestra in particular
ensures that it’s not overpowering. Gautier Capuçon brings
an almost quasi-improvisational sense to his ruminative statements,
seemingly eliding over bar lines with intimacy and freedom within
bounds. And there’s a measured refinement to the orchestral
strings that underlies this approach, reinforcing its expressive
contours. Chung stresses the cohesive rounded warmth of the
brass rather more, in fact, than the romantic fissures that
underlie the music.
It’s an approach both subtle and sensitive that reminds me in passing
of a broadcast performance given by the rather higher profile
team of Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis, one that shared these
intimate and inward looking instincts. The subtlety can be best
examined perhaps in the slow movement where the wind principals’
phrasing tapers with great refinement and the string soloists’s
weight of bow pressure and vibrato colour is impressive. Their
light wristy bowing is most evident in the finale, rhythmically
well sprung, albeit at one point the cellist’s tone sounds ungainly
(at 4:01).
It’s a strong point of view albeit one that I find tends to promote
reflective, legato warmth rather at the expense of tensile strength.
But for those for whom heroics are anathema here the Capuçon
brothers will come as balm.
The companion work is one guaranteed, pretty much, to share the reflective,
internalized feelings projected in the Double Concerto. Once
again those moments of overt masculinity in the Clarinet Quintet
– for all the “autumnal” baggage that attends it - take second
place to intimacy and delicacy. Articulation is precise; the
playing is languid, mellifluous, rounded, warm and lyric. Paul
Meyer is an assured and sympathetic player. But the corporate
feeling is, to me, skewed too firmly one way. In this respect,
as in the Concerto, it tends to offer only a partial view of
the work.
Jonathan Woolf
see also Reviews by Kevin
Sutton and Tim
Perry
