The first great merit of this latest version of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is the warm, open sound. Recorded in Henry Wood Hall, it matches in its beauty and refinement the special qualities of the performance. As in his recent version of the Sibelius Concerto, also for Hanssler with Marriner and the Academy (10/00), Sitkovetsky gives an immaculate reading, clean and fresh, with every note in place, crisply articulated in bravura passages, and with no hint of haste in the finale. Both in the slow movement and in the ‘Meditation’, which comes as an apt fill-up, there is a purity in his approach, a hint of detachment, even though he uses free rubato, and his tone is warm, and the vibrato carefully controlled.
Those qualities alone are enough to provide a recommendation for anyone fancying this coupling, offering as it does in addition an account of the Romeo and Juliet overture under Marriner that is similarly fresh, direct and beautifully recorded. The downside is that, compared with such charismatic performers as Perlman and Chung, Sitkovetsky lacks something in electricity.
His performances seem so free from risk, that except at the very end of the finale, where the bravura is thrilling in its build-up, the results sound almost too controlled. In the second subject group of the first movement, for example, Sitkovetsky’s sweet, beautifully moulded phrasing acquires a hint of self-consciousness. Such free, even extreme, rubato would be readily acceptable in a live performance, but somehow when calculated in the studio it draws attention to itself. In the Canzonetta slow movement, where in the middle section Perlman and Chung press forward warmly, following tradition, Sitkovetsky restrains himself, much closer to the score, which marks no speed-change (track 2, 2'14''). The result is more faithful, if heavier.
As the note points out, the ‘Meditation’ – one of the three pieces which Tchaikovsky grouped under the title Souvenir d’un lieu cher as his Op 42 – was originally designed as a slow movement for the concerto, until Tchaikosvsky conceived the rather lighter, more flowing Canzonetta. It comes here in the orchestration of Glazunov’s piano original, though that is not mentioned in the booklet. Not a front-runner in a keenly competitive field for the concerto, but an appealing and unique coupling.'