 Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst: Elegy, Op. 10; Othello Fantasy, Op. 11; 6 Studies for solo violin; Grand Caprice on Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” Op. 26, for solo violin. Ilya Gringolts, violin;
Ashley Wass, piano. (Hyperion 67619)
 Arensky: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 54; Taneyev: Suite de concert, Op. 28. Ilya Gringolts, violin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov, cond. (Hyperion 67642)
On Ilya Gringolts’ Ernst recording, the playing must be heard to be believed. A spectacular virtuoso, Gringolts studied at St. Petersburg’s Special Music School and New York’s Juilliard School. In 1998, he became the youngest winner of the Paganini Competition and has since established a flourishing international career as recitalist, chamber player, and concerto soloist. He is living up to his promise.
Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (1814–1865), whom Joseph Joachim called “the greatest violinist I have ever heard,” was born in Brno, Moravia. A sensational prodigy, he first played in public at the age of nine. He studied violin and composition at the Vienna Conservatory and, in 1859, joined Joachim, Wieniawski on viola, and Piatti on cello in what must be the most stellar string quartet ever. Unfortunately, he died before the invention of the grammophone, but his compositions give a good idea of what his playing must have been like. When he was 14, Ernst heard and fell under the influence of Paganini, whom he eventually surpassed in exploring and exploiting every instrumental effect with matchless inventiveness and imagination.
Ernst’s music, written by the most brilliant virtuoso of his day for his own use, bristles with all imaginable—and some unimaginable—instrumental tricks, including left-hand pizzicato together with bowed notes, and double- and triple-stops that create the illusion of two violins in action.
Gringolts performs all these hair-raising feats with apparent ease. His intonation never falters, his tone remains pure—he achieves the most dizzying speeds without sounding rushed or losing clarity. Most admirably, he makes the acrobatics sound like music, with melodies that sing and soar, elegant phrasing, tonal variety, charm, and expressiveness. He even captures the Italian operatic style in the Rossini Variations. The only cavil is the insertion of long pauses in odd places, breaking flow and continuity.
Ashley Wass, a sadly underemployed pianist with a remarkably lyrical tone and approach, provides empathetic support.
The Arensky/Taneyev disc is another charmer. It features works by two Russian composers connected by their friendship with each other and with Tchaikovsky. Though hardly part of the mainstream repertoire, there’s much to recommend: lovely melodies, inventive, sometimes surprisingly advanced harmonies, glittering, variegated orchestrations, and, for the soloist, boundless opportunities for technical display. Dedicated to Leopold Auer, these are unabashed showpieces that leave no instrumental resource unexplored or unexploited.
Gringolts is a persuasive champion.
He tosses off the acrobatic fireworks—runs at top speed in every part of the fingerboard, double stops and chords of all kinds, trills, harmonics, bravura bowings on and off the string—with breath-taking ease. His tone can be rich and dark or delicate and shimmering, and remains flawlessly pure at all times. Best of all, he enters into the heart-on-sleeve quality of the music with genuine feeling but without becoming effusive or sentimental.
Arensky’s concerto bears a resemblance to Glazounov’s. In the same key, it also is structured in a single movement divided into several sections, including a brilliant Mendelssohn-like cadenza. Its somber opening theme evokes the bleakness of the Russian steppe. Gringolts brings out the contrasts of mood and character: the Valse is charming, the slow movement has a typically Russian melancholy, the running passages are stunning. The longer Taneyev Suite shows a strong European influence: French Baroque dances and impressionist colors, a tarantella, a mazurka, a fairy tale, and a double fugue.
These inspiring violin works allow Gringolts to display his stylistic versatility along with his tonal palette and command of the stratosphere. One caveat: this altogether extraordinary recording is marred somewhat by the explosive dynamic contrasts between tutti and solo, so keep a finger on the volume control.
—Edith Eisler
 Brahms: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra,
Op. 77; Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra, Op. 102. Vadim Repin, violin;
Truls Mørk, cello. Gewandhaus Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly, cond. (Deutsche Grammophon 00289 477 7470)
This must be one of the most beautiful recordings of the Brahms Violin Concerto ever made. First, there is Vadim Repin’s tone: flawlessly pure, with a warm glow in the low register, a celestial shimmer in the high one. But what makes it unique is its intense personal expressiveness, proving that there is no such thing as a “beautiful” tone unless it reflects the player’s emotional response to the music. In this grand, expansive performance, Repin shows his lifelong love for the work in the way he caresses details, shapes phrases, and gives every note life and significance, even in the running passages. Refuting the half-serious jest about the concerto being a battle between soloist and orchestra, Repin and Chailly create a true collaboration of equals, each able to take either a leading or supporting role.
The recorded balance, both between them and within the orchestra, is superb, bringing out and interweaving melodic strands in a seamless, colorful tapestry.
Repin also disproves the assertion that Brahms wrote the concerto against rather than for the violin, tossing off the most formidable technical feats as easily as throwing snowballs. Occasionally, he lapses into exaggeration from sheer romanticism or exuberance, but the feeling is so genuine that
it hardly matters. The rarely performed
Heifetz cadenza consists mostly of quotes
from the concerto connected by very poor modulations.
Pairing the two Brahms concertos is tempting, but the Violin Concerto shows up the Double Concerto’s comparative shortcomings: its less-cohesive structure, less-inspired melodies, less-idiomatic instrumental writing. The playing, however, is no less impressive, though Mørk’s tone is a bit rough and he tends to get effusive and slide too much. Intonation and ensemble are impeccable, the give-and-take and cumulative buildups work perfectly. Both players avoid false accents in the tricky finale opening. After a majestic, austere beginning,
the pervasive mood is expansive, mellow, nostalgic.
Unfortunately, the recorded balance makes the soloists sound soft and distant. —E.E.
 Marc Blitzstein: First Life, the Rare Early Works. Del Sol String Quartet (Kate Stenberg and Rick Shinozaki, violins; Charlton Lee, viola; Hannah Addario-Berry, cello); Sarah Cahill, piano. (Other Minds 1017-2)
The two string quartets included here give an impression of “works in progress” rather than finished products. There are such structural flaws as unprepared endings, in which the music simply stops. Except for one fugal section in the finale of the second quartet, Marc Blitzstein (1905–1964) ignores the medium’s conversational potential and its tonal and textural resources. Instead, he favors chordal and rhythmic unisons, running scales, octave duets, and solo cadenzas.
The music holds the listener’s interest in large part thanks to the excellent performance of the Del Sol Quartet, a San Francisco–based group that champions contemporary composers and brings to these works total technical control and musical commitment. In the first, “Italian” quartet, the players emphasize the pungent irregular rhythms and spicy grace-note figures, and build up to a passionate climax in the long slow finale.
In the second quartet, “Serenade,” they keep the counterpoint clear and bring out the melodies above and within an austere chordal background.
Tragically, Blitzstein died before he had developed his full potential and found his own voice. Indeed, he is remembered more for his leftist sympathies than for his work. His 1936 opera, The Cradle Will Rock, was a hit mostly because the government shut it down for political reasons. Yet, he was remarkably talented, as these works, written between 1927 and 1932 and never published, prove. —E.E.
 Bernd Alois Zimmermann: Concerto for violin and large orchestra; Canto di speranza, for cello and small orchestra; Cantata: Ich wandte mich und . . . Thomas Zehetmair, violin; Thomas Demenga, cello; WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Heinz Holliger, cond. (ECM New Series 2074 476 6885)
These are the works of an anguished soul desperately seeking hope. The Violin Concerto (1950), Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s transcription of his own violin and piano sonata, features Thomas Zehetmair and uses a huge orchestra to maximum effect in volume and variety. The opening tutti crashes and screaming woodwinds set the stage. Both frequently recur. The solo part, from its first high, tremulous, chattering entrance, is stratospheric and fiendishly difficult, with trills, double-stops, leaps, and runs. The improvisatory second movement begins with a cadenza that, though interrupted by orchestral crashes, blossoms into some singing lines. The finale is a dance that speeds up frantically and ends with a crash.
The Cello Concerto (1952–57), “Song of Hope,” was inspired by Ezra Pound’s “Pisan Cantos.” It is a cantata with the soloist representing the human voice—it is more subdued, introspective, declamatory. Soloist Thomas Demenga and orchestra engage in much give-and-take, creating a feeling of fragmentation. The solo part, again, is extremely demanding, going very high and exploiting every instrumental sound effect.
Zimmermann’s style is a mixture of many trends current in his time. It is hard to find any sense of coherence in these compositions. This is wild, tormented, agonized music, based on extreme contrasts of register, dynamics, texture, and mood. Perhaps the most disturbing element of these works is that both are dedicated to his wife. Though successful and well established, Zimmermann was beset by self-doubt as well as physical and mental illness all his life and committed suicide at the age of 52.
The playing is extremely impressive. Zehetmair and Demenga handle their parts with incredible security and communicative power. —E.E.
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