Elgar Violin Concerto. Vaughan Williams Lark ascending
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 1/1998
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: EL5 56413-4
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Kennedy, Violin City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer Simon Rattle, Conductor |
(The) Lark ascending |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Kennedy, Violin City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Composer or Director: Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Elgar
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: EMI
Magazine Review Date: 1/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
ADD
Catalogue Number: 556413-2
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra |
Edward Elgar, Composer
Kennedy, Violin City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Edward Elgar, Composer Simon Rattle, Conductor |
(The) Lark ascending |
Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer
Kennedy, Violin City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer Simon Rattle, Conductor |
Author:
Let me say straight away that, from almost every conceivable point of view – authority, panache, intelligence, intuitive poetry, tonal beauty and emotional maturity – Kennedy surpasses his achievement on that earlier
Only the finale oddly dissatisfies. Not in terms of technical address or co-ordination (both of which are stunning); rather I feel that, for all the supreme accomplishment on show, the results are not terribly moving. To my ears, the opening pages incline to a foursquare, slightly hectic brusqueness, while the great cadenza, so overwhelmingly intense (at times almost unbearably so) in the concert-hall performance, has now acquired a whiff of calculation about it. Maybe it’s a question of over-preparation? Perhaps, in striving too hard for perfection, the ineffable poignancy of Elgar’s sublime inspiration has for once eluded this consummate partnership? Or is it that, having been touched to the very marrow by Kennedy’s playing that July evening, I was simply expecting too much? The coda, by the way, is thrilling, but I can’t help feeling it comes a bit late in the day. For all my lingering doubts about this last movement, though (and I must say they have persisted since my first hearing), we are still left with an enormously stimulating and marvellously well-engineered display which all readers should experience for themselves.
The coupling is a provocative account of The lark ascending, which Kennedy and Rattle spin out to a (surely unprecedented?) 17-and-a-half minutes. After a curiously unevocative opening (how elusive these crucial introductory bars can be!), Kennedy allows himself all the time in the world during the ecstatic senza misura cadenza that follows. His tone is ravishing, but I just wish he’d kept things moving a little more: his contribution doesn’t ineluctably draw me into VW’s landscape in the way that Iona Brown, Hugh Bean, Tasmin Little or the incomparable Jean Pougnet (EMI, 1/91 – nla) unfailingly do. Thereafter, Rattle’s (unmarked) expressive bulges from 3'05'' to 3'55'' strike me as too knowing; indeed, tuttis have a voluptuous, pristine quality that I find strangely alienating. Kennedy chooses to ignore VW’s pianissimo marking at the start of that enchanting, light-as-air (though not here) Allegro tranquillo passage beginning at 9'09''; and later on, during those colla parte measures at 11'19'' and 11'40'', his exaggeratedly soft playing seems contrived, ‘pasted-on’ if you like. Truth to tell, this ‘super-de luxe’ rendering of a piece I adore has yet to hold my concentration completely even after numerous revisits. However, the disc as a whole demands to be heard.
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