Souvenir Russe

No in-your-face Tchaikovsky from this young player but she finds the poetry

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Genre:

Orchestral

Label: Sony Classical

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

Stereo

Catalogue Number: 88697 21423-2

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Andris Nelsons, Conductor
Baiba Skride, Violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Souvenir d'un lieu cher Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Andris Nelsons, Conductor
Baiba Skride, Violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Swan Lake Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
Andris Nelsons, Conductor
Baiba Skride, Violin
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Composer
This young Latvian violinist makes a quiet but marked impression here. There is modesty and a touching fragility about her playing – the Tchaikovsky Concerto has rarely sounded more lyrical, more “feminine”. In the second subject group of the first movement a rare instance of interpretative licence has her making a big ritardando, a sudden “dissolve”, if you like, into a moment or two of pure reverie. It could be Tatyana reflecting on that letter she’s just sent to Onegin – there is wonder and apprehension in it. The same might be said of the cadenza, uncommonly introspective and poetic.

Andris Nelsons’s shaping of the CBSO – he’s the new musical director – is fashioned very much in Skride’s image and here I must admit that there are times when a touch more muscle might have lent the proceedings more of a lift: I miss the “kick” and trumpet-toned brilliance of the grand polonaise variant in the first movement’s tuttis. The wintry colours of the slow movement are lovely, though, with Skride’s many shades of pale elegantly dovetailed into flute and clarinet adornments.

All these qualities are replicated throughout the disc, the other amuses-bouches attended with equally good grace. Glazunov does a passable imitation of Tchaikovsky in his orchestration of Souvenir d’un lieu cher.

So what’s missing? On this evidence I would say panache. Her Tchaikovsky Concerto is not going to wow those accustomed to bigger bowing and more primary colours. The wilder side of her temperament (if there is one) is kept well in check.

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