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Ernest BLOCH (1880-1959)
Violin Concerto (1938) [38:21] Baal Shem for violin and orchestra (1923) [14:34] Suite Hébraïque for violin and orchestra (1952) [13:06]
Zina Schiff (violin)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra/José Serebrier
rec. Henry Wood Hall, Glasgow, 28-30 March 2006 NAXOS 8.557757 [66:01]
I suppose it all
depends how Jewish you like your Bloch Violin Concerto. Soloist
Zina Schiff, who also writes the fine booklet notes, has little
truck with the composer’s own stated thoughts on the subject.
She clearly thinks his promotion of the “American Indian” is
an evasion of the “Jewish” motifs in the work. To underscore
the point she plays it as she means it, vesting the opening
paragraphs with yearning Hebraic tone and expressive portamenti
that are, in my experience, unique on disc.
It makes for songful,
heightened tension and a definably different alignment in expressive
weight. Thus passages in the central movement become, in her
hands, a Chassidic chant, and Bloch’s statement that he had “no
Jewish intent” in the concerto is put to stern test. She plays
with technical assurance throughout, and she brings a strong
sense of self-identification to bear - one that’s increased
by virtue of her promotion of the Biblical in Bloch. She has
José Serebrier to accompany, an old stager in this work who
has already recorded it with Michael Guttman.
But for those who
may not share this sense of the explicit there’s a more aristocratic
approach – what I’d call the Szigeti-Totenberg-Bress lineage.
Szigeti is best represented by the live performance with Mengelberg
(Music & Arts CD720) though the premiere recording he made
with Charles Munch in Paris is a powerful document in its own
right. Totenberg recorded it in Vienna in 1961 with Golschmann
on Vanguard 08404671. And Hyman Bress made a magnificent recording
with the Prague Symphony under the much under-rated Jindřích
Rohan in 1967 (Supraphon). All three adhere more closely to
the more expressively “neutral” if I can put it that way. Thus
Bress can seem to underplay the opening – but not a bit of it;
he is magnificently in control of the rhetoric, and the pacing,
of a superficially discursive opening movement. Totenberg plays
the work, violinistically, better than it’s ever been played
on disc; his accompaniment is not as imaginative as some others
but his is a central name in the discography of this work. Szigeti
of course is wonderful and again he makes no attempt to turn
the concerto into a Hebraic vehicle; Mengelberg’s support is
galvanic, though not as good as Rohan’s in the finale. Of course
there are other recordings but Menuhin’s, for example, hasn’t
quite stood the test of time.
The Suite Hébraïque is
once again a vehicle for Schiff’s expressive certainties. She
plays with maximum commitment and real eloquence. But turn to
Bress and one finds him rather faster in the Rapsodie,
his rubati subtly deployed and his tone multi-variegated. It’s
Bress and Rohan who are more in tune with the dynamic contours
of the second movement Processional – Schiff and Serebrier
could have sculpted things rather more imaginatively here. And
there are one or two sticky moments in the finale – awkward
sounding after the command of Bress. Baal Shem is of
a piece with Schiff’s playing throughout – committed and generous
expression allied to fine technical command.
No complaints about
the sound quality. Naxos has captured this orchestra and recording
location before and does so again in exemplary fashion. This
is a fine budget price disc sporting quality performances. My
own tastes happen to lie elsewhere – Bress if you can find him,
Totenberg for the superlative solo playing, Szigeti for a historical
reference - but for those who prefer red blooded Bloch, this
is a viable, albeit Biblical, alternative.
Jonathan Woolf
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