Unsuk CHIN (b. 1961)
Rocaná (2008) [20:57]
Violin Concerto (2001) [26:58]
Viviane Hagner (violin)
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal/Kent Nagano
rec. live, Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, Montréal, 15-16 January 2008 (Violin
Concerto) and 3-4 March 2008 (Rocaná)
ANALEKTA AN 2 9944 [48:09]
Born in Seoul and resident in Berlin Unsuk Chin has already made quite a name
for herself thanks to a number of works that have regularly featured in many
festivals throughout the world. Her Cello Concerto has been premiered during
the 2009 BBC Proms. A fairly recent DG release that I have still to hear has
brought her music to a wider audience, and this disc from the Canadian label
Analekta will undoubtedly enrich one’s appreciation of her often subtle
and beautiful music.
The Violin Concerto is a substantial work in four movements consisting
of an overture, a slow movement, a Scherzo and a Finale recalling earlier material.
The soloist’s part is far from easy but, as in a number of recent and
not-so-recent concertos - the soloist is much more a primus inter pares than
a competing outsider. The solo part is thus clearly part of the whole fabric
in which the orchestra often functions as a multi-voiced resonating box. The
first movement opens rather hesitantly with the violin’s repeated gestures.
The music opens out and becomes considerably more animated and capricious,
particularly so in the last stages of the movement. The second movement opens
with a beautiful song-like theme played by the soloist accompanied by percussion
and plucked strings. This leads into a more dramatic section recalling parts
of the opening movement. A varied restatement of the opening brings the movement
to its ethereal close. There follows a short, capricious Scherzo. The music
opening the Finale seems to resume where the Scherzo left off; but it soon
changes course before restating parts of the earlier material to bring the
work full circle on a final unresolved musing by the soloist.
Chin’s Violin Concerto is a beautiful work with a refined poetic feel
and with often subtly shaded scoring that repays repeated hearings. Viviane
Hagner possesses both the technique and the musicality to render Chin’s
poetic vision to the best possible advantage.
Appropriately enough the music of the orchestral work Rocaná (a
Sanskrit word meaning “room of light”) suggests the continuous
interplay of light and shade on which the entire work is based. The orchestral
textures, too, constantly alternate density and lightness as well as stasis
and activity. In the latter instance static sections are underpinned by much
more lightly scored activity, so that the music never really pauses but flows
along seamlessly. The overall impression left by Rocaná is
that of a colourful, often refined and subtly scored kaleidoscope. This is
a work that definitely deserves to be heard more often for this is contemporary
music with a nice poetic feel that I find endearing and attractive.
These performances are very fine indeed and totally committed. Kent Nagano
is the dedicatee of Rocaná and he gets wonderful support
from the orchestra. These are live recordings but the sound is quite good with
very little audience noise. My only regret about this otherwise desirable disc
is its shamefully short playing time. There was room for another work by Chin.
Hubert Culot