It is striking how the Sibelius Violin Concerto has inspired many young artists to give outstanding performances on disc, and here are two more. Pekka Kuusisto, 20 this year, has won a whole series of violin competitions in his native Finland and elsewhere, not least the Seventh Sibelius Competition, where he was awarded a special prize for his performance of this very work. Helped by close balance and a full, rich and immediate recording, he gives a strong, passionate reading, very outward-going, lacking some of the meditative, inner qualities that others find, but compensating in his volatile imagination. His speeds are on the broad side, but the urgency and concentration are never in doubt. With a Finnish conductor and orchestra too the result is both magnetic and idiomatic, with rubato, however marked, always sounding natural. The orchestral playing is equally positive and idiomatic in the two Sibelius suites, with the popular outer movements of Karelia bouncy and swaggering and the central “Ballade”, longer than either, equally atmospheric. The exotic colours of Belshazzar’s Feast are then vividly caught.
It is the purity and refinement of Vadim Repin’s performance of the Sibelius that strikes one first. The withdrawn darkness at the very start quickly opens out thrillingly to reveal his total command, the tautness of control, with tone sharply focused. Here is an artist, 25 next August who, for all the brilliance of his virtuosity, his ability to dazzle and show off in his playing, regularly keeps a degree of emotion in reserve, his very restraint adding to the intensity. His name has been linked with that of Maxim Vengerov, since they were both pupils of Zakhar Bron, and it is fascinating to compare them in the Tchaikovsky.
Those who resist the big, opulent sound of Vengerov will probably warm to Repin, whose withdrawn tone in moments of meditation and his fondness for the gentlest of pianissimos are as remarkable as his purity and sharpness of focus in bravura passages. In my review of Vengerov’s Teldec disc I mentioned the magic of his sudden pianissimos, often in echo phrases, but Repin’s are even more extreme. Many such interpretative details are remarkably similar in both performances, though with his taut control Repin is generally a degree less free in expression, steadier in his chosen speeds, which in the finales of both concertos are excitingly fast. Like Vengerov and most latter-day interpreters Repin opens out the little statutory cuts in the Tchaikovsky finale. An excellent illustration of Repin’s special qualities comes in the second subject of the first movement (3'10'' on the first track), where, lighter than usual, his confidential manner is magnetic; and I have never heard the violin’s entry in the central Canzonetta of the Tchaikovsky quite so breathtakingly hushed. The natural balance of the soloist in refined and well-detailed Erato recording enhances those and other passages, making this a highly recommendable alternative to the versions from Mullova and Chung which offer the same coupling.'