Stravinsky, Bartók and Martinů were established international figures when they wrote these works for violin, travelling across Europe as well as the United States. With the onset of World War Two, all three composers would ultimately emigrate because of their rejection of fascism. In an age of political upheaval and cultural displacement, each of them found an individual approach to reinventing the language of tonal music, laying down roots in the west without abandoning their Eastern European identities. While the Russian-born Stravinsky was experimenting with possibilities of modern violin technique in his Concerto, Martinů took these efforts a step further in his Suite concertante by blending the sounds of his native Bohemia with the colours of French neo-classicism. In the Rhapsodies, Bartók turned to the folk music of Hungary and Romania.

Frank Peter Zimmermann, joined here by the Bamberger Symphoniker and its conductor Jakub Hrůša, continues his exploration of the great violin works of the 20th century after his acclaimed recordings of works by Hindemith (BIS2024), Shostakovich (BIS2247) as well as Martinů and Bartók (BIS2457), a recording unanimously acclaimed by the critics, gaining a Diapason d’or and named ‘Concerto Choice’ by BBC Music Magazine, ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone and one of Classica’s ‘Chocs de l’année’.

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Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D (1931): 1.Toccata
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Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D (1931): 2.Aria I
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Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D (1931): 3.Aria II
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Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D (1931): 4.Capriccio
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Bartók: Rhapsody No.1, BB94b (1928, rev. 1929): 1. Lassú. Moderato
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Bartók: Rhapsody No.1, BB94b (1928, rev. 1929): 2. Friss. Allegro moderato
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Bartók: Rhapsody No.2, BB96b (1928, rev. 1935): 1. Lassú. Moderato
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Bartók: Rhapsody No.2, BB96b (1928, rev. 1935): 2. Friss. Allegro moderato
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Martinů: Suite concertante, H276/II (1944): 1. Toccata
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Martinů: Suite concertante, H276/II (1944): 2. Aria
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Martinů: Suite concertante, H276/II (1944): 3. Scherzo
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Martinů: Suite concertante, H276/II (1944): 4. Rondo
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Martinů: Méditation (1939) (2nd movement of Suite concertante, original version, H276/I)

Europadisc Review

Although it was written consciously against the grand tradition of Classical and Romantic violin concertos from Beethoven to Tchaikovsky and Brahms, and harked back instead to the world of Bach, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D (1931) has proved remarkably popular with violinists on disc. From historic recordings by Samuel Dushkin (the work’s dedicatee and first performer), Oistrakh and Schneiderhan to more recent contenders including Isabelle Faust and Vilde Frang, there’s a dazzling array of choices for this neoclassical (or rather, neo-Baroque) work. However, it’s rare for two high-profile new recordings to be released within just a week of one another: James Ehnes has recorded it with the BBC Philharmonic and Andrew Davis on Chandos, while Frank Peter Zimmermann (in what appears to be his third recording of the piece) teams up with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and Jakub Hrůša on BIS, following their acclaimed 2020 release of Martinů’s violin concertos.

Both recordings have their strengths. Ehnes (see here) is marginally more expansive, with noble tone and nimble technique, and the orchestral detail is vivid thanks to Chandos’s typically well-focused recording. From the outset (with the famous ‘passport chord’ that opens each of the work’s four movements) there’s a doggedness to the opening Toccata, while the first of the two central Arias finds Ehnes’s rich tone well deployed against the orchestral soloists and the second has some wonderfully heartfelt playing. The concluding Capriccio bursts into life, with pre-echoes of the ‘Dumbarton Oaks’ Concerto much in evidence. Davis is an attentive accompanist, and the BBC Philharmonic woodwind players in particular are exemplary in their duets with the solo violin. In the final analysis, however, this performance feels slightly too ‘studied’: the individual elements are expertly drawn, yet somehow the admirable parts don’t quite gel into a convincing whole.

Whether you choose the Ehnes recording may depend on the couplings. This is an all-Stravinsky disc, with a range of works from his so-called ‘neoclassical’ phase illustrating the sheer variety covered by that catchall term. A genial account of the Scherzo á la russe (originally written in 1945 for the Paul Whiteman band) follows the Concerto, before the timeline leaps back to the 1920s and the two Suites for small orchestra. The album concludes with what is perhaps Stravinsky’s neoclassical masterpiece, Apollon musagète, a ballet scored for string orchestra. Davis and the BBC Philharmonic strings deliver a beautifully considered account of the score, even though it often doesn’t have quite the bite or élan of some rival recordings. Nevertheless, for those wanting an all-Stravinsky coupling for the Violin Concerto, this disc makes an attractive proposition.

Turn to Zimmermann on BIS, however, and you get a rather different take on the work: there’s a degree more urgency, and also more edginess, while at the same time capturing some of that poised detachment so crucial to the neoclassical aesthetic. The solo violin is very much to the fore, the orchestral sound a little more backward than on the Chandos disc, yet thanks to Hrůša’s expert direction the coordination between soloist and orchestra is faultless. There’s a coolness to Zimmermann’s virtuosity which speaks of long experience with this score, yet he knows how to dig in without creating an overrich tone. And the Concerto as a whole, including a more restless account of Aria I and a wonderfully tender and dreamy Aria II, coheres in a way that Ehnes and Davis on Chandos can’t quite match.

The other works on the BIS disc are also for violin and orchestra: Bartók’s two Rhapsodies, composed just a few years before Stravinsky’s Concerto, are steeped in the folk music of Eastern Europe. Each follows the slow–fast Lassú–Friss pattern of movements familiar from Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, and both soloist and orchestra clearly relish the opportunity to get stuck into the earthy folksiness of these two surprisingly contrasting pieces. They are followed by a work which, appropriately enough, combines neoclassical and folk elements: Martinů’s Suite concertante for violin and orchestra of 1944. Cast in four movements, it is partly modelled on Stravinsky’s Concerto, and its first two movements are similarly a Toccata and Aria. Yet the music is very much Martinů’s own, with an immersive urgency to the opening movement, and big splashes of sound in the orchestral tuttis. The Aria is uninhibitedly expressive, but with a delicate sheen to the demanding violin part which is wonderfully conveyed by Zimmermann.

The following Scherzo opens with a crack and continues in fizzing fashion even at its moderate tempo, with a measure of sardonic humour, and Zimmermann’s fabulous dexterity and virtuosity is lightly worn, which suits the quicksilver nature of the music. Folk elements in the concluding Rondo are married to a broad, expansive orchestral palette, against which the soloist dances with not a care in the world. The concluding stretta brings the tonal centre back to the work’s home key of D major (another common feature with the Stravinsky) in a bracing close. An added bonus is the haunting Méditation, which formed the original second movement of the Suite. It’s a magical end to an exceptionally rewarding disc, well-programmed and brilliantly executed and recorded. Another triumph for Zimmermann, Hrůša and the team at BIS!