ANDRE PREVIN.  CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA "ANNE-SOPHIE."

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin; Boston Symphony Orchestra, cond. Andre
Previn [39:38]

LEONARD BERNSTEIN.  SERENADE AFTER PLATO'S "SYMPOSIUM" FOR SOLO VIOLIN,
STRING ORCHESTRA, HARP AND PERCUSSION. [31:19]

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Violin; London Symphony Orchestra, cond. Andre
Previn.

DG B0001313-02.  [71:07]

This is an apt pairing, as these performances comment on one another
and the works have some fundamental things in common.  Although written
nearly half a century apart, style is one of those things.  Another is
indicated by the titles.  Bernstein said of his Serenade that "the music,
like the dialogue, is a series of related statements in praise of love."
Previn's concerto, commissioned by the BSO, was written for Mutter (before
their marriage), includes a theme of her suggestion (a German folk song),
and bears her name.  Its dominant mood and tone is idyllic and lyrical,
and it is hard not to hear it as a kind of extended love song without
words.  And partly because it seems implausible that another pair of
musicians would perform this for a long time, it may not be too much of
a stretch to identify the solo part with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the
orchestral part with Andre Previn.

I make these prefatory remarks for these reasons: at nearly forty minutes,
Previn's is one of the longest violin concertos I know (Elgar, Beethoven
and Brahms exceed this length but most are shorter); the pace is mostly
slow throughout; the dynamics are on the soft side; and the texture is
light (with some nice woodwind and horn playing); thus the impatient
listener might wonder "what is Previn doing here?" So I suggest an answer.
As it happens, the more I hear the work the more I like it (with the
exception of one short, broad passage in the opening movement which I
would be happier without.) The concerto contains some exquisitely beautiful
music, especially at the end of the second and third movements, and the
violin playing is ravishing.

Previn's music is unabashedly tonal, though sometimes polytonal.  The
concerto has an intensely lyrical opening.  This is followed by faster
livelier music; that is not sustained, and the mood becomes relaxed
again.  Each of the movements contains some vigorous, jazzy Bernstein-like
passages, providing a needed change of pace.  Each of the successive
movements is longer than the preceding one, which is unusual.  So is the
placing of the main cadenza at the very beginning of the second movement,
but this works.  Some of the music that most interests me is in that
second movement.  The liner notes give Previn's own assessment of that
movement as "more barren and acidulous" than the rest; granted that it
is not as lush as the first, I would never have used those words about
it.  The long final movement is a set of variations on "Wenn ich ein
Voeglin waer" ("If I were a bird and had two wings, I'd fly to you").
It ends literally on the highest and quietest possible note.

Of living conductors, Previn may be the best possible person to
conduct Bernstein's Serenade.  The two musicians have had much in common,
including an interest in jazz, and Previn sometimes played piano with
Bernstein on the podium.  At any rate, I think Bernstein would not have
been unhappy with this performance, which ranges from brash to soulful
as called for.  Bernstein recorded the work more than once himself,
initially with Zino Francescatti and the New York Philharmonic, later
with Gidon Kremer and the Israel Philharmonic, and also with Isaac Stern
and the Symphony of the Air.  Perlman and Hahn have recorded it too.
The ones I have heard are the original recording and Hahn's.  The greatest
contrast between Mutter/Previn and Francescatti/Bernstein is in the
exquisitely songful Agathon Adagio, which makes an interesting comparison
with much of the music in the Previn concerto.  Mutter and Previn take
this over a minute more slowly, while still expressing the intensity of
its middle minutes.  The Aristophanes Allegretto is also slower.  The
other movements are roughly comparable in duration (as are Hahn/Zinman)
to the NYPO version.

Strongly recommended to anyone who cares for this kind of music.

Jim Tobin
Copyright 2004 by R. James Tobin