Anyone who heard Lydia Mordkovitch's fervent and glowing account of Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto at the BBC Promenade Concerts some years ago will know just how totally she is attuned to his sensibility. The present release, which offers his three major works for violin and piano, serves to reaffirm this. The earliest is the D minor Sonata, written in his early twenties in the received tradition of Brahms and Franck; the most characteristic is the set of Myths, Op. 30, composed during the First World War at the time of the First Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 3, The song of the night.
Currently Mordkovitch has the field pretty much to herself in this repertoire: Wanda Wilkomirska (Polskie Nagrania/Target) plays beautifully in the Sonata but the recording does not flatter her, while the hushed pianopianissimo notes
that open ''La fontaine d'Arethuse'' from Myths are thunderous in the hands of Konstanty Kulka's pianist Jerzy Marchwinski (also Polskie Nagrania), thanks to a close balance in a fairly constricted acoustic. (Good though Marchwinski is, I found it difficult to stay the course.)
Intonation has to be spot-on in this repertoire and needless to say it is on the Chandos issue—only during ''Narcissus'', the second of the three Myths, is there a very tiny lapse, some slight sourness (track 7, 16 bars after fig. 1, 3'07'') hardly worth mentioning. The Myths are beautifully done with highly sensitive playing from Marina Gusak-Grin, backed by an expertly balanced recording. Not that I would say either of these artists necessarily eclipses Kaja Danczowska and Krystian Zimerman in these magical pieces, whose return to circulation (DG (CD) 431 469-2GGA—to be reviewed later) must be warmly welcomed. Mordkovitch is a committed advocate in the Sonata, as she is in the Nocturne and Tarantella, and I do hope she will soon give us the two concertos.
It may be ungracious, given such excellent fare, to complain of short measure, but room could surely have been found to accommodate the D major Romance, Op. 23 and also some of the Konchanski transcriptions. Nevertheless, strongly recommended.'