Hindemith: Violin Concerto

Paul Hindemith’s first instrument was the violin, and so thoroughly did he master it that he rose to become leader of the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra at the age of 19. Even if his focus soon shifted to the viola and to composing, he continued to play and to write for the violin, creating a series of works that fascinatingly mirror the various stages in the development of his musical language, from the vocabulary of late romanticism to the monumental, revivified Baroque idiom of his maturity. In a generous selection of these works, the eminent violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, who in 2010 was awarded the international Paul Hindemith Prize of the City of Hanau, makes an eloquent case for them, from the Sonata in E flat, composed in 1918 while Hindemith was still serving in the German army on the Western Front, to the strikingly emotional Violin Concerto of 1939, written during his first year of exile from Nazi Germany. Besides the masterly Sonata in C, composed shortly before the Concerto, and the tuneful 1935 Sonata in E, Zimmermann also includes the Solo Sonata, Op.31 No.2, with its final movement a set of variations on a Mozart song. In the accompanied sonatas Zimmermann enjoys the support of a regular chamber music partner, the pianist Enrico Pace, whereas in the concerto he teams up with Paavo Järvi, another recipient of the Paul Hindemith Prize and principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. Together they convey an unusually colourful, shimmering and passionate image of Paul Hindemith, in a commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the composer.

Ivry Gitlis was born in Haifa, Israel in 1922. He gave his first recital when he was just nine years old, and was heard by the great Bronislav Huberman, who recommended that he go to Paris to study at the National Conservatory. He won the Premiere Prix at the age of 13, and went on to study with George Enescu, Jacques Thibaud and Carl Flesch. During the Second World War he moved to London, where he was assigned to the British Army artist branch, giving many concerts for Allied troops.

Gitlis has always been a difficult violinist to categorise – maverick, with an unwillingness to conform, he has cultivated a unique style, and is at home in Wieniawski as he is in Xenakis, on prime time TV shows and in the great recital rooms of the world. He is a devoted champion of new music and has premiered works by Maderna and Xenakis. He is also proud of his appearance on The Rolling Stones album ‘Rock and Roll Circus’. Vox made the recordings on this set in the late 1950s and the 60s. The Berg and Stravinsky concertos won a Grand Prix du Disque, and as well as being highly regarded by fellow musicians, were apparently a favourite of Marilyn Monroe.

‘It seems to me, though I should like to have longer to think about it, that Ivry Gitlis gives the finest performance of both the Bartok works above that I have ever heard’ Gramophone, Bartok, 1955

‘Ivry Gitlis is a technical master, and he brings to both the Bruch and Sibelius concertos an address that stands them in very good stead…The Sibelius relaxes less often; and indeed Gitlis's attack on it is pursued with an intensity and ferocity that are substantially rewarding in their own right’ Gramophone 1956

See also the Russian Legends box set.