Lydia Mordkovitch pays tribute to David Oistrakh
Pietro Antonio LOCATELLI (1695-1764) Sonata in F minor, Op. 6 No. 7 'Au tombeau' (arr. Eugène Ysaÿe) [15:16]; Caprice No. 23 'Il labirinto armonico' from L'arte del violino: XXI concerti… con XXIV capricci ad libitum, Op. 3 for solo violin [3:21]
Eugene YSAYE (1858-1931) Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2 (I Obsession. Prelude [2:50]; II Malinconia [3:26]; III Danse des ombres. Sarabande [5:12]; IV Les Furies [2:55]) (ded. Jacques Thibaud) [14:26]
Ernest CHAUSSON (1855-1899) Poème, Op. 25 (arranged for violin and piano) [14:17]
Dimitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975) Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op. 134 [29:40]
Sergei RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) Daisies ('Margaritki') No. 3 from Six Songs, Op. 38 (arr. Fritz Kreisler) [2:42]
Lydia Mordkovitch (violin)
Nicholas Walker (piano) (Locatelli); Marina Gusak-Grin (piano) (Chausson); Clifford Benson (piano) (Shostakovich); James Kirby (piano) (Rachmaninoff)
rec. The Maltings, Snape, Suffolk, 26-27 January 1986 (Sonata No. 2), 12-14 February 1989 (Poème), 11 December 1990 (Violin Sonata). Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, 17-19 February 2002 ('Daisies'); 3-4 October 2008 (Sonata, Op. 6 No. 7, Caprice No. 23)
CHANDOS CLASSICS CHAN 10612 X [79:46]
These four works for violin and piano and two for violin alone
pay apt and heartfelt obeisance to one of the world’s great
violinists, the Odessa-born David Oistrakh.
This is said to be a modest tribute – perhaps as modest as the
unassuming Oistrakh himself. It’s certainly not ungenerous in
timing or in artistic worth and it’s at mid-price. The emissary’s
tribute is very much in the sound tradition established
by Oistrakh. Mordkovitch was after all Oistrakh’s student at
the Moscow Conservatory during her twenties. There are, by the
way, two atmospheric and informal monochrome plates showing
Oistrakh and his pupil. She plays superbly throughout with magnificent
generosity of tone, texture and colour. Has Mordkovitch ever
played as well, I wonder? She has made many outstanding recordings
not least for Chandos, a label that has become her home. The playing here communicates with a grip that implies something
more than mere inspiration. That said this sequence of recordings
made between 1996 and 2008 was not made specifically as an Oistrakh
tribute yet perhaps in this repertoire it cannot be played by
her without catching the echoes of so many hours working with
this great artist.
Mordkovitch’s violin and bow produce a sound that equates with
a bonfire that while burning intensely does not consume the
fuel that sustains it. A warming romantic legato flows and flows
in a legato lava stream. Ysaye’s Locatelli is more Ysaye than
Locatelli and no harm in that. It is burnished and golden. Amazing
how often it recalls the Sibelius concerto – itself a work recorded
with moving mastery by Oistrakh. The Thibaud-dedicated Ysaye
solo sonata in four movements adds to the dazzling Paganinian
glossary an emotional freight and harmonic succulence. Mordkovitch
reminds us what a great violinist she is in trouncing the turbo-acrobatics
while voicing the musicality. And the Sonata is by no means
all hoarse rhetorical display but when it does move into that
region Mordkovitch lets you know. After the insistent breathless
flood that is Les Furies comes the ecstatic long-breathed
continuum of song that is the Chausson Poème. The Second
Violin Sonata by Shostakovich provides further facets to this
Oistrakh memorial. No punches are pulled in its hallmarks of
acrid passion, satirical grotesquerie, cordite-choking violence
and rhetorical determination. The playing is no simulacrum of
Oistrakh but certainly extends a handsome and life-imbued
homage which serves both as memorial and as a delightfully potent
experience in its own right. That it ends with the innocently bobbing
Daises serves to round out the experience with a gentle
sough. Something special.
Rob Barnett
A delightfully potent experience.