BRITTEN Violin Concerto
Britten’s 1939 Violin Concerto from Ehnes in Bournemouth and Sohn in Chieti
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Jonathan Berger, Benjamin Britten
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Eloquentia
Magazine Review Date: 08/2013
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: EL1340
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra |
Benjamin Britten, Composer
Benjamin Britten, Composer Livia Sohn, Violin Luigi Piovano, Conductor Marrucino Theatre Orchestra, Chieti |
Jiyeh |
Jonathan Berger, Composer
Banff Centre Chamber Orchestra Henk Guittart, Conductor Jonathan Berger, Composer Livia Sohn, Violin |
Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: Onyx
Magazine Review Date: 08/2013
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 66
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ONYX4113
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra |
Benjamin Britten, Composer
Benjamin Britten, Composer Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra James Ehnes, Violin Kirill Karabits, Conductor |
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 |
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer James Ehnes, Violin Kirill Karabits, Conductor |
Author: Richard Fairman
These two new recordings place themselves centrally. James Ehnes is a very fine violinist and there is barely a moment here when his playing is anything but silken in tone and sinuously refined (try the elegance as he rises into the stratosphere at the start of the finale). Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra make cultured colleagues but there is not much danger in their ostinato rhythms or edge to their attack. Ehnes also sings in a blue sky through the elegiac passages, where Britten’s recording taps into the ominous ‘perilous sweetness’ that would later pervade Death in Venice. The performance by Livia Sohn on Eloquentia is more difficult to pin down. Sohn’s playing feels more immediate, partly thanks to the soloist being given a closer balance, and it is shot through with angst and urgency – but her conductor, Luigi Piovano, sometimes lets the tension sag and the playing of the Orchestra del Teatro Marrucino di Chieti is as clumsy as it is characterful.
The couplings help to make the choice easier. Ehnes gives us another highly skilled performance in Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto. Sohn adventurously offers Jonathan Berger’s Jiyeh, premiered by her in 2007 and a complementary work in addressing the theme of pacifism, but the score sounds loosely written after the Britten and hardly compelling. The top recommendation still has to be Lubotsky and the composer on Decca. Among recent rivals, Marwood and Volkov on Hyperion display a hotline to Britten, closely followed by the recent Chandos release with Little and Gardner.
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