A small point to begin with: because Orfeo has decided to include the two
Serenades the programme length (87 minutes) requires a second CD, thus
necessitating the use of a gatefold sleeve. The good news is that the
gatefold is only fractionally wider than a conventional jewel case and the
price bracket is that of a single disc.
Baiba Skride has enjoyed many a good review of late (
Shostakovich;
Mozart;
Brahms;
Szymanowski;
Stravinsky) and is one of a phalanx of formidably
equipped young violinists. Shes not the only player to bracket these two
Scandinavian concertos and she does so with the 30-year old conductor
Santtu-Matias Rouvali, who is not much older than she is. If that implies
youthful high-spirits and a sense of unbridled freedom, then listening to
the performances suggests that other facets and aesthetics will be
encountered. Skride is attentive to dynamics but one can hear from her
opening paragraphs that she is strangely unwilling to let the line unfold
with tension generated from within. Instead she buttresses it with a battery
of inflections with the result that the music sounds destabilised from the
very start, and a too overtly expressive feel is generated. If the
presentiments of a serene kind of intensity are your ideal, you may well
find Skride bumpy and over-colouristic.
Yet this is not necessarily a feeling that often recurs. Orchestrally, we
hear plenty of the inner part writing, those rhythmically galvanising
running string figures that are promoted in the balance by Rouvali, as well
as teak-based orchestral sonority. Having noted the over-emoted start,
Skrides playing actually retains a rather small-scaled position, very
consonant throughout, and not at all extrovert. The first movement is rather
slow, giving it a rhapsodic profile, the music coming to punctuation points
several times. Its a world away from
Heifetz,
Wicks,
Oistrakh,
Stern,
Telmanyi and
Spivakovsky though interestingly shes only
half a minute slower than one of the concertos greatest exponents, Anja
Ignatius, whose wartime reading, however, constructs a far more compelling
narrative. Broader vibrato marks the central movement, at another basically
but not unconscionably slowish tempo, though she has the phraseology here to
sustain things. In the finale the insistent lower string drumming patterns
are forcefully brought out, and Skride makes time for some sympathetic
lyricism, but these two implied features the concentration on the
propulsive features in the accompanying writing and a lack of heroic heft in
the solo part tend to define at least part of this performance. Its a
very worthwhile reading nevertheless, and seldom less than rewarding but
not, to my mind, a compelling one.
The Serenades make for enjoyable companions, especially the folkloric
Hardanger moments of the second with the folkloric fiddle colours especially
nicely done by Skride. It suits very well her tight, bright tone.
With a recording that like the Sibelius - seems somewhat to spread, she
plays the opening paragraph of the Nielsen with beautiful long phrases,
though thereby missing the more interventionist approach taken by the
composers son-in-law,
Telmanyi in his 1947 recording with Egisto Tango. The main concern is
the strangely leaden approach to the
Allegro cavalleresco which
sounds dogged, the passagework taken so scrupulously that all spirit of
adventure is dissipated. Both
Menuhin, with Wvldike and Telmanyi himself, take a full
two
minutes off Skrides timing in this
movement alone. Indeed theyre both much quicker in the finale as well.
Speed in itself is not a recommendation, but characterisation and rhythmic
flexibility are, and those older recordings, despite the dated sonics, have
those qualities in profusion.
Jonathan Woolf
