Benjamin Britten & William Walton
                Concerti

* Britten: Violin Concerto, op. 15 (revised version)
* Walton: Viola Concerto (1961 version)

Maxim Vengerov, violin and viola; London Symphony Orchestra/Mstislav
Rostropovich
EMI 5 57510 2  Total time: 64:29

Summary for the Busy Executive: From St. James to St. Petersburg.

Coming so close on the heels of Hickox and Mordkovitch's superb
reading of the Britten on Chandos (CHAN 9910), this release gave me pause.
Vengerov, of course, can play the violin, and Britten wrote enthusiastically
for the cellist Rostropovich, so Rostropovich knows well Britten's musical
neighborhood.  This account holds up just fine, for the most part.  For
a very long time, listeners were more or less stuck with Britten's account
with violinist Mark Lubotsky, one of the few failures in Britten's
performances of his own music.  Now listeners actually have a choice
to make.

Mordkovitch revealed something new about the concerto.  Always considered
formally innovative, it nevertheless failed to connect emotionally with
a great many listeners, despite the hints from its first soloist, Antonio
Brosa.  Hickox and Mordkovitch discovered the concerto's links to the
doomed Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.  In their hands, the
first and last movements became a kind of elegy, separated by a bitter,
acerbic scherzo.  Vengerov and Rostropovich get some of that intense
melancholy, without emphasizing the specifically Spanish links, as one
hears in the Chandos recording.  Furthermore, they disappoint structurally,
particularly in the last movement.  The passacaglia finale never gels
as a passacaglia and never reaches the architectural coherence of
Mordkovitch and Hickox.

Walton's viola concerto, definitely one of the greats for the instrument,
hasn't really caught on like his violin concerto, judging by the number
of recordings, at any rate.  I have no idea whether this comes from its
being a viola concerto or, because early Walton, it lacks the characteristic
sound and bounce many expect from Walton's music.  Like the Britten, it
presents an unusual structure: a mainly slow first movement, a scherzo,
and a weighty finale.  In the liner notes, Malcolm MacDonald claims the
Prokofiev second violin concerto as the model for both Britten and Walton.
The first movement is predominantly melancholy and lyrical, interspersed
with vigorous bustle for contrast.  The second movement, an extended
rondo, fizzes along close to The Walton We Know, but not quite so jazzy.
Vengerov and Rostropovich perform Walton's revision from the Sixties,
which brings the work closer to his usual sound.  The finale starts off
with a cheeky little march on the bassoon, but soon veers off into the
sweetly sad territory of the first movement.  The two elements jostle
one another for space, including an astonishing, glittering contrapuntal
display of the march, but in the end the march theme gets reduced to
tags and mere accompaniment, as the soloist recalls the slow material
of the first movement.  In fact, it turns out that the march and the
concerto's opening theme are cousins.  The viola takes up the concerto's
opening in a sad benediction, full of regret.  I consider this concerto
one of the most sheerly beautiful for the instrument, mainly because it
sings with such cool and self-possession -- a role that a violist can
assume naturally.

The recording to beat for me is the EMI recording led by Walton himself,
with Menuhin as soloist.  It's still a great recording, but I think
Rostropovich and Vengerov surpass it.  They put more blood into the
piece.  Vengerov plays the viola like the violin superstar he is -- and
it's a little surprising to hear it this way, let me tell you -- but the
passion rises here more than with Menuhin, Bashmet, or Primrose.  And
the London Symphony Orchestra has the piece down.  The fact that Vengerov
and Rostropovich do so much better with the Walton than with the Britten
doesn't really surprise me.  The Britten is such an odd duck of a work,
it's hard to grasp architecturally and emotionally.  In Walton, the
emotions, though deep, aren't as complicated, and the structure lies
closer to more familiar pieces.  EMI's sound comes off a bit bright,
but the sonic perspective and solo/tutti balance are absolutely right.

Steve Schwartz