Vadim Repin
      Russian Violin Concerti

* Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D, op. 35
* Myaskovsky: Violin Concerto in d, op. 44

Vadim Repin, violin; Kirov Orchestra/Valery Gergiev
Philips 289 473 343-2 {DDD} TT: 71:48

Summary for the busy executive: Diamonds and rust.

I've heard people complaining about the coupling -- "Why do we need
another Tchaikovsky concerto?" -- as if Philips tried to palm off
inferior goods and to walk the safe path.  I guess it's just not possible
to do anything right for such classical-music fans, who apparently have
completely forgotten Philips's inclusion of the Myaskovsky.  At least
it isn't the Mendelssohn.

I might as well confess my guilty secret.  Tchaikovsky, one of my favorite
composers, wrote my second-favorite violin concerto.  I admit he lacks
the architectural genius of Brahms, but architecture isn't everything.
He gets a raw deal from, I suspect, people who listen to music out of
duty, rather than out of sensual pleasure.  An unapologetic musical
hedonist, if I don't enjoy the grosser aspects of a work, I probably
won't bother to investigate the architecture.  Who really wants to look
at a solidly-built ugly house?  In any case, the Tchaikovsky not only
rings my chimes but holds together beautifully as well.  The composer
has nothing to apologize for.

I should note that I've never heard the concerto as Tchaikovsky wrote
it.  Its first player, Leopold Auer, revised some of the passages so the
soloist could wow with more brilliant effect, and the so-called "standard
edition" makes a number of small cuts in the finale, in the name of
reducing repetition.  This is the version played here, and on probably
every other CD and live performance I've heard.

Of course, there are over 125 recordings of this work out there (I haven't
heard all of them, by the way), and I'm sure you have at least one.  My
favorites include -- in no particular order -- Oistrakh, Stern, Heifetz,
Mutter, Milstein, Perlman, Bell, Vengerov, and Morini.  For those of you
who could care less about Myaskovsky, the question becomes whether you
want this duplicate.

I can answer this for myself easily -- you bet I do! -- and not just
because it's the Tchaikovsky.  Repin to me is the finest violinist now
before the public.  Perhaps I exaggerate.  After all, I've heard only
two recordings, both in Russian Romantic and post-Romantic repertoire.
Technically, he has mastered everything.  His tone is full and robust,
his intonation dead on, even in the stratosphere and in double- and
triple-stops.  The technique joins amazing musicianship.  Vengerov's
tone may be sweeter, and though he plays the violin very well indeed,
he doesn't always play the music.  With Repin, one gets the feeling of
a profound musical sensibility always on the move.  He seems to make up
his phrasing on the spot.  Believe me, this isn't a Tchaikovsky concerto
where the soloist predictably hits all the well-known marks.  Amazingly,
Gergiev and the Kirov match him, hesitation for hesitation, acceleration
for acceleration.  Reading this, you may get the impression of a musical
taffy-pull, but, believe me, it all coheres.  The larger structural
concerns don't get lost.  This is, for example, the only performance I
know of where one hears the introductory strains of the second movement
each time they come up, including the middle of the movement, where a
climactic restatement of the main theme usually buries them.  However,
analyzing a performance like this can lead to the wrong impression.  This
is a charged, highly emotional account, not a studious one.  It has the
surprising advantage of impeccability, even as soloist and orchestra
burn down the barn in the finale.  I can't recommend the performance
strongly enough.

Myaskovsky at this point appears a bit of a cult figure, which means
only that the few people who have heard his music like it quite a bit.
To some extent, he continues the Tchaikovskian line of Russian music
into the Twentieth Century (Myaskovsky died in 1950), and the violin
concerto straddles High Romanticism and early Modernism.  At times, you
think you're hearing Medtner, at others Khachaturian.  However, Myaskovsky's
inspiration doesn't stand out as something particularly individual.  On
the other hand, it seems (excluding certain occasional pieces) well-made
and deeply-felt.  I don't especially care for the composer's idiom, but
I can see why people like the music.  The violin concerto, a big, ambitious
work running over half an hour, begins with a huge first movement (more
than half the concerto) that aims at symphonic tautness.  Myaskovsky
uses three main ideas, two of them based on the minor third (or its
inverse, the major sixth).  To me, it goes on way too long for its
material, with at least two large passages that just seem to pass by.
On paper, one can see that Myaskovsky thematically relates everything,
but rhetorically he seems to have miscalculated.  Nevertheless, there's
a lot of dark brooding that should appeal to Slavophiles.  The slow
movement opens with a lovely, sweetly singing theme that alternates with
a sorrowful one.  It seems to me typical of Myaskovsky's lyricism that
sorrow gets more air time, even though the sweet singing ends the movement.
The last movement -- a rondo -- opens with a rhythm sort of a second
cousin to the finale of the Sibelius concerto.  Here Myaskovsky concentrates
at first on solo display, but a lyric episode, moving mainly by chords
and introduced by strings, takes one by surprise.  This is my favorite
moment in the concerto.  The conventional notions of what Russian music
should sound like go out the window.  It's a bit Vaughan Williams-y, as
a matter of fact.  Myaskovsky knew what he had, because he repeats it
whenever he gets the chance.  Nevertheless, the concerto ends, as most
well-behaved concertos do, with a ramp up of the fireworks.

The sound is fine, but I find myself uneasy with the balance.  You will
never hear a live soloist dominate an orchestra as Repin does.  On the
other hand, you can hear Repin tear into climactic passages which normally
get covered by an orchestra.  Ultimately, I suppose I agree with the
choice Philips made.

Steve Schwartz