RECORDING OF THE MONTH
Sergei PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in F Minor Op. 80 (1938-1946) [30:03]
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in D Major Op. 94bis (1943)
[23:43]
Three Pieces from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ Op. 64 [8:06]
Vadim Gluzman (violin)
Angela Yoffe (piano)
rec. December 2012, Sendesaal Bremen, Germany
BIS BIS-SACD-2032 [63:02]
This release turned up just as James Ehnes’s superb two disc
‘Complete Works for Violin’ (see review) has been receiving massive plaudits. With
this being the 60th anniversary of 1953 these coincidences are
always likely, but unless SACD sound is a deciding factor when purchasing
such releases this does put Vadim Gluzman and Angela Yoffe straight against
stiff competition.
By any standards these are all terrific performances, recorded in
stunning sound - up quite close and personal, but with plenty of space
around the instruments, inviting us in rather than blowing us off our seats.
The BIS balance puts the piano on a more equal footing than that with
Chandos, where the violin is a little closer in feel, though not to the
extent that it covers the piano. Ehnes has a fine parlando feel in
the first movement of the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, which
heightens the emotion in a part of the piece which can sometimes sound a
little static. Vadim Gluzman has this and greater eloquence, giving even
passages of restraint an emotional weight which carries us forward into
realms of ever increasing intensity. Ehnes is more abstract, which has its
own strengths, but which keeps this first movement as more of a prelude
rather than a powerful statement in its own right. The drier Chandos
acoustic is less favourable to the chunky notes which throw us straight into
the deep end of the Allegro brusco, played with greater on-the-edge
string-grabbing heft by Gluzman. The theme at 1:07 becomes a dramatic moment
here as if the entire piece has been building to this point, and Gluzman and
Yoffe hold us in a grip of staggering intensity. For all its fine qualities,
Ehnes and Armstrong’s performance is somewhat blown out of the water
by Gluzman and Yoffe, whose Andante in this piece is meltingly
beautiful, the muted violin having a nicer tone than Ehnes, Yoffe’s
arabesques in the piano and the deeper sonority in the bass line phrases
also having a greater expressive effect. The final Allegrissimo is
hugely exciting in both performances, Ehnes and Armstong being swifter by an
appreciable margin, but Gluzman/Yoffe able to muster massive sonorities and
greater degrees of contrast for the more lyrical passages as a result.
For us flute players the popularity of the Sonata for Violin and
Piano No. 2 in D Major Op. 94bis will always be something of a sore
point, but it is such good music that, in the end, who cares what it’s
played on. Once again it is Gluzman and Ehnes in competition, but the
comments with regard to the first sonata are equally valid in this case.
Ehnes and Armstrong are excellent, but Gluzman and Yoffe are just so much
more beefy, more involving. Again it comes back to emotion against
abstraction - Ehnes and Armstrong technically brilliant and musically
sensitive, but Gluzman and Yoffe conjuring a considerable extra layer of
poetry and empathetic impact. Little extra touches of weight on certain
notes or harmonies, a little more detail in the articulation, a few degrees
more breath and freedom in the music all adding up and making the big
difference in the end. There are of course other competitors in this field,
and that with Isabelle van Keulen and Ronald Brautigam on Challenge Classics
(see review) comes from the same Sendesaal acoustic
as this BIS recording. I’ve only been able to listen to this online
and it does sound like an excellent release, also a Chandos-beater in these
pieces but to my ears still not quite displaying the same degree of
convincing musical depth and weight as Gluzman/Yoffe. Keulen and Brautigam
tend to slightly swifter tempi which have their own excitement, but it is
that sense of every note and phrase conveying its own message, like the
sentences in an intimate letter, which makes this BIS recording a touch more
special. Take the tender Andante of Op.94 bis, which both duos
take at roughly similar, fairly swift and suitably unsentimental tempi.
Keulen and Brautigam have fine phrasing and dynamics, but when compared to
Gluzman and Yoffe appear almost just to be charging ahead and missing the
points the latter find so precious. Without disturbing the flow of the music
Gluzman holds onto notes a fraction longer here and there, Yoffe in perfect
synchronization, introducing a sense of nostalgic yearning right from the
start and delivering that sense of narrative which I always bang on about,
but which I all too rarely find in actual fact. That second section is a bit
like our characters have decided to go for a walk in the park on Challenge
Classics, where at 1:05 our BIS artists manage to establish a magical change
of mood, celestial and poetic - creating all kinds of flitting images in the
mind rather than conjuring amused feet sweeping through autumn leaves.
The Three Pieces from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ open
with ‘that music off of BBC’s The Apprentice’,
Montagues and Capulets performed with maximum power and a sense or
real orchestral thrust from pianist Angela Yoffe. Prokofiev wrote all too
few works for violin and piano, and this arrangement by D. Grjunes is a fine
addition to the repertoire, also including the Dance of the Girls with
Lilies and Masks.
I’ve admired Vadim Gluzman’s playing before, and all of his recordings on the BIS label
can safely be recommended. It’s tricky to be definitive, but of the
more recent recordings of these sonatas I have heard this would be the one
for me. There are others. Ilya Grubert and Matti Raekallio on Ondine is
potent stuff, but Grubert is a bit shouty on some accents and there are too
many unappealing moments to make this a real contender. You might come
across Joseph Szigeti and Joseph Levine’s historical performance as a
digital download from Past Classics, and while this is of great interest I
can’t bear Szigeti’s wobbly vibrato, and the balance between
violin and piano in the Second Sonata is terminally in favour of the
violin, which sounds as if Szigeti is playing while sitting on your lap. So
yes, with stunning SACD sound, everything in its favour and with musical
qualities which make this a recording to relish for years to come, I’m
going to stick my neck out and say Vadim Gluzman and Angela Yoffe are
the best for these two Prokofiev masterpieces.
Dominy Clements
Simply the best.
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