Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35

In another original concerto pairing, Grammy award winning violinist, Hilary Hahn, releases the world-premiere recording of Jennifer Higdon’s 2010 Pulitzer Prize winning concerto. Higdon’s masterpiece is stunningly paired with the ever popular, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, one of the most popular romantic violin concertos in the repertoire.

“While they come from different worlds, they share a great many qualities: lyrical delicacy, a brooding gentility, energetic abandon, and a fine maturity of spirit. Placed back to back, they suggest the range of musical possibilities open to the violin in the early twenty-first century.” Hilary Hahn

On this recording, Hahn teams up with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of award winning young conductor, Vasily Petrenko. Hilary won a Grammy as “Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with orchestra)” in 2009 and the Choc du Monde de la musique in 2008.

When reflecting on Nicola Benedetti’s varied career to date it’s easy to forget that she has only just turned 23. Benedetti shot into the public spotlight as winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year at the age of 16 and has since released four albums for Deutsche Grammophon while building a solid international career.

Benedetti’s career was crowned this summer when she made her BBC Proms debut, performing Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’ in the Royal Albert Hall. Other recent and upcoming highlights include debuts with the Russian National Orchestra, as well as her Dallas and Pittsburg debuts.

In her previous recordings Benedetti has always made creative repertoire choices with innovative groupings of pieces. Works have included world premiere recordings by leading British composers such James MacMillan and Sir John Tavener. But now Benedetti, for the first time, has recorded two giants of the violin concerto repertoire, the Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, op.35 and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, op.26.

The Tchaikovsky and Bruch concertos, composed in 1878 and 1866 respectively, are two of the best-known – and best-loved - concertos in the repertoire. In the case of the Tchaikovsky it is also one of the most technically demanding.

Although Benedetti’s fifth album for Deutsche Grammophon, this will be her first of entirely standard violin repertoire. With this album, Benedetti has recorded works against which all violinists must test themselves.

This is the second CD on this label of recordings by the virtuosic violinist Ida Haendel. These historical recordings of violin concertos rank among the musical jewels in the archives of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Arthur Grumiaux was a prince among violinists and recorded extensively for Philips/Decca. Many of his recordings – some of them released internationally for the first time on CD – have appeared on an extensive series on the Eloquence label. Here is another – a rare 1956 performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto coupled with his highly-praised traversals of the Stravinsky and Berg concertos.

[Berg/Stravinsky]: "Grumiaux's pure style brings rare magic to both these works. To the Berg he brings above all tenderness and sweetness; to the Stravinsky he brings above all strength and dynamism. The one virtuoso, remaining his individual self all the time, effortlessly encompasses the utterly different demands of each work." Gramophone

Ruggiero Ricci is in his element in these virtuoso concertos and showpieces, with both, the Tchaikovsky Concerto (with Sargent) and Scherzo and the Sibelius Violin Concerto being released internationally on CD for the first time. The perceptive booklet notes by Tully Potter include a biography of Ricci and (sometimes wry!) comments by the violinist himself on the recordings, and some fascinating detail on the first movement cadenza of the Khachaturian. All the recordings were made in a five-year period from 1956 (Khachaturian) to 1961 (Tchaikovsky).

It is the existence of surviving broadcast acetate recordings of many of Barbirolli’s broadcasts with the Philharmonic that have enabled us to form a more complete picture of his work and genius (not too strong a word) as a conductor during this period, recordings which in many instances are being made available for the first time publicly. From a period of almost three-quarters of a century, we are able to study and evaluate Barbirolli’s art in a manner that was unavailable to earlier generations of music-lovers. The evaluation produces extraordinary results.

The first of our two CDs in this set opens with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, in which the soloist is Mishel Piastro. The performance comes from March, 1942, and will be a revelation for many listeners. Piastro is hardly known at all these days, but he was the leader of the Philharmonic under Toscanini and, of course, under Barbirolli. He was, as we may hear, an absolutely astounding violinist – it is rumoured that someone remarked to Fritz Kreisler that ‘Piastro is so gifted but he’s lazy and doesn’t practise’, to which Kreisler replied, ‘Thank God!’ The second CD in this set of performances opens with the world premiere performance of the Piano Concerto by Mischa Portnoff. This Concerto is, as can readily be heard, a dazzlingly effective work, with extremely virtuosic writing for the soloist, composed in a style perhaps best described as a mixture of the then contemporary music of Prokofiev and Shostakovich rather than, say, that of Stravinsky. The soloist was the Lithuanian-born but American naturalised pianist Nadia Reisenberg (1904-83), whose family settled in New York after the Russian Revolution.

The works in this set receive brilliant – not to say breathtaking – performances from the Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York, the members of which were clearly relishing the opportunity to display their virtuosity under a conductor who by that time had won over the hearts and minds of every musician taking part.