Guro Kleven Hagen Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra Bjarte Engeset Sergei Prokofiev Violin Concerto No

PROKOFIEV VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 2 BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 GURO KLEVEN HAGEN OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA BJARTE ENGESET SERGEI PROKOFIEV VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 2, G MINOR, OP. 63 – 26:18 – 1 ALLEGRO MODERATO 10:44 GURO 2 ANDANTE ASSAI 09:38 3 ALLEGRO, BEN MARCATO 05:56 KLEVEN MAX BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1, HAGEN G MINOR, OP. 26 OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA – 22:44 – BJARTE ENGESET 4 ALLEGRO MODERATO 07:51 5 ADAGIO 07:42 6 FINALE. ALLEGRO ENERGICO 07:11 2 3 SERGEI PROKOFIEV VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 2, G MINOR, OP. 63 – 26:18 – 1 ALLEGRO MODERATO 10:44 GURO 2 ANDANTE ASSAI 09:38 3 ALLEGRO, BEN MARCATO 05:56 KLEVEN MAX BRUCH VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1, HAGEN G MINOR, OP. 26 OSLO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA – 22:44 – BJARTE ENGESET 4 ALLEGRO MODERATO 07:51 5 ADAGIO 07:42 6 FINALE. ALLEGRO ENERGICO 07:11 2 3 Symphony Orchestra conducted by Enrique and pizzicato strings. The central section is rather Arbós. Soëtens gave the British premiere a year more skittish, but it does not detract from the later, with Sir Henry Wood conducting the BBC dominant air of spontaneous lyricism. In fact this Orchestra, and in January 1938 he took part in the movement of the concerto most closely echoes British concert premiere, also with the BBC the style of the ballet Romeo and Juliet, which Orchestra, when Prokofiev himself conducted. Prokofiev had also started working on at the time. In the closing bars the pizzicato of the violin PROKOFIEV AND BRUCH The work is scored for an orchestra of modest accompanies a fragment of the main theme in the proportions: double woodwind, 2 horns, 2 orchestra. trumpets, a small body of percussion, and VIOLIN CONCERTOS strings. Whereas the First Concerto had pivoted The finale, with its strong rhythms and pawky two substantial but moderately-paced melodic ideas, has at times the character of a – BY MALCOLM MACDONALD – movements about a short, pithy scherzo, in the ballroom waltz, but more often flavour of a rough Second Prokofiev returned to the more orthodox peasant dance – though whether the peasants plan of three movements in the sequence are Russian or Spanish is sometimes difficult to fast-slow-fast. The Concerto opens with a tell, especially when the main theme of this rondo bittersweet, five-beat figure in the solo violin is accompanied by castanets. This movement has The two violin concertos on this recording have Indeed, it was the last major work he began which, from the first, suggests an element of greater dissonance and pungency than the remained well-loved concert standards since they before his return to live in the USSR in 1934, and metric imbalance from having to be aligned with others, which is put at the service of Prokofiev’s were first written and performed, never falling out his last commission from a non-Soviet source, the 4/4 metre. It grows into an expansive G typically sardonic wit: typical, too, are the of the repertoire. While Bruch’s First Concerto and it marks a deliberate simplification of his minor tune for unaccompanied solo violin, soon grotesque elements which appear from time to exemplifies the high Romanticism of its time of musical language. However, its many felicitous taken up and embellished by the orchestra. The time. The Concerto has no extended cadenza as composition, Prokofiev’s Second Concerto shows and ingenious touches mark it out as a fully long, meditative second theme, with its cunning such, but the coda of the finale seems to serve the incipient return to romanticism of a composer characteristic work of its composer. It was first tonal side-slips, is a splendid example of this function, with a brilliant closing display of solo originally regarded as a modernist enfant terrible. conceived as a ‘concertante sonata’ for the Prokofiev at his most lyrical and direct. The violin pyrotechnics to a mainly rhythmic French violinist Robert Soëtens, the term perhaps development makes resourceful use of both accompaniment in the rest of the orchestra, Sergei Prokofiev was already very experienced at denoting its extensive reliance on polyphony in subjects, with constant changes of pace and driving to an exciting conclusion. writing concertos – five piano concertos, for chamber-music style, but metamorphosed during focus that lend it something of the character of instance – before he composed the opening work composition into a full-blown Concerto. Prokofiev a set of variations, before a return of the Max Bruch was not quite thirty when he scored in this programme. His First Violin Concerto himself drew attention to the way the work opening theme on cellos and basses signals the his greatest public success with his First Violin (1916-17) had been a typical product of his reflected his ‘nomadic’ existence – the first theme recapitulation. Concerto, which remains his best-known work. It rebellious youth, spikily witty and naïvely was written in Paris, the slow movement in was in fact his first concerto for any instrument, emotional by turns. His Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Voronezh, and the Concerto was completed on 16 The slow movement is a romantic song for the but he wrote many concertos and concerto-like minor, op. 63, written over 20 years later, is an August 1935 at Baku, on the Caspian Sea. It was violin in the relative major (E flat major), based on works during the remainder (more than 50 years) example of his mature style, in which he no longer first performed by Soëtens in Madrid on 1 a wistful, beautifully flexible melody which is first of his long career, including two further violin sought to shock or scandalize his audience. December of the same year with the Madrid heard over delicate triplet figuration in woodwind concertos which failed to attain the popularity of 4 5 the first. Throughout his life, he remained faithful troubles of his own – for a long time he had been Third Violin Concertos, and later in life would The whole conception of this slow movement is to the ideals of lyrical, well-presented melody, director of music in Hannover, but due to the often claim that he could no longer bear to hear it! that of an almost operatic aria for the solo violin, clear-cut forms and romantic feeling of which the political fallout from the Austro-Prussian War and though again it is shaped in a kind of sonata Violin Concerto is such a shining example. Once the deposition of the Hanoverian King George he Despite the intricacies and travails of its design with two subjects – complementary ideas in the forefront of Romanticism, he became found himself without employment. He eventually evolution, the G minor Concerto as it was finally rather than competing ones. The solo writing deeply conservative in artistic outlook simply by wrote to Bruch with sage advice and resolved has an ease, naturalness and perfection grows increasingly intricate, leading to a remaining the same kind of composer he had encouragement (and a suggested cadenza), of form that gives the impression that the whole deeply-felt development that explores both always been. reassuring the composer that he had certainly thing emerged in a single happy inspiration. It is themes to the utmost. The recapitulation brings an produced a true concerto. essentially a lyric concerto, rather than a emotional relaxation, and Bruch then inserts a Bruch began composing his Violin Concerto No. 1 dramatic contest in the manner of Beethoven, and brief pause before the finale. in G minor, op. 26 in the summer of 1864, shortly Though Bruch did not adopt all Joachim’s was soon widely regarded as the natural after his first meeting with the great violinist suggestions (nor those of Levi and David), he did successor to the great concerto by Mendelssohn. The finale, after a quiet but excited orchestral Joseph Joachim and some months before he took undertake a thoroughgoing revision of the work. This lyric aspect is demonstrated by the fact that build-up, breaks out Allegro energico with a up his first successful appointment, as This Joachim played in a private performance in Bruch treats his first movement, not as a full-scale joyous, irresistible dance-tune. (The tune is Kapellmeister in Coblenz. Before this time he had Hannover in October 1866 conducted by Hans von sonata movement with cadenza, but more like an somewhat in the manner of a Hungarian dance, been making a name for himself primarily as a Bronsart; after further refinement of the score extended prelude to the other two movements, which may well be a salute on Bruch’s part to composer of choral works, and he regarded a public performances in Bremen, Hannover and which contain the main substance of the work. Joachim, who was himself Hungarian and whose concerto as a significant challenge. In fact, the Aachen followed, with resounding success. The (Antonín Dvořák would later do the same in his large-scale Concerto in the Hungarian Manner piece gave him a great deal of trouble: he actual premiere of the final definitive version, sole Violin Concerto, no doubt in emulation of struck many as a contemporary classic. afterwards wrote, perhaps with a measure of completed in Sondershausen – where Bruch had Bruch.) Bruch actually entitles his first movement Moreover, there are strong similarities in exaggeration, that “between 1864 and 1868 I moved after the terminatuion of his Coblenz “Vorspiel”. A soft timpani roll and some structure between Bruch’s tune and the main rewrote my concerto at least half a dozen times, appointment – on 22 October 1867, was given by melancholy woodwind phrases prepare for the finale subject of the Violin Concerto which and conferred with X violinists, before it took the Joachim in Bremen under the baton of Karl entrance of the violin with a thoughtful melody Brahms would write – also for Joachim – some form in which it is universally famous and played Reinthaler on 7 January 1868, and soon that slowly takes a more defined shape.

Load more