a couple of violin concertos‏

by richibi

a violin concerto is of course the same thing as a piano
concerto with a violin however where the piano would
be, performing histrionics before an orchestra for the
length of several movements, traditionally three, usually
fast, slow, fast, for reasons of presentation psychology,
a fast, arresting introduction, then a slow, languorous
beat to forcefully display an alternative musical sensibility,
then fast again for a big, splashy, electrifying finish, leaving
no question about outsized either compositional or
interpretive capabilities, or rather, about outright,
manifest, wizardries 
 
Beethoven and Tchaikowsky give us again the big ones,
Rachmaninoff, essentially a pianist, didn’t write for the
violin, composing to be able to play himself his own works, 
superbly in fact, even definitively, his performances of his
piano concertos are matchless 
 
Anne-Sophie Mutter, one of the brightest stars in
Herbert von Karajan‘s Deutsche Grammophon galaxy,
the company that he put on the international map in
the sixties to cast, magisterially, the richness of our
musical heritage upon that unsuspecting decade, and  
beyond, still commands rapt attention internationally 
though her mentor died in 1989, leaving the world
with less charisma, I might add, less glamour and
authority, less power and panache, in his musical
wake, though other concert luminaries shine
illustriously still, only without now the power of his
charged magnetism, his inspired musical sensibility
and the consummate ability to market his own and
his artistic community’s wares to an often otherwise
distracted audience
 
here he is a divinity overseeing the motion of the sun,
the moon, the stars in a universe of his own creation,
he is extraordinary, he is composed, supremely
confident, while his eyelids reveal the reaches of his
ecstasy 
 
Anne-Sophie Mutter is impeccable, evidently a star
pupil in her master’s stable 
 
 
Sarah Chang, a mere child, is no less dazzling in her
piece, an old spirit in the guise of a sprite, she polishes
off a fiendish Tchaikowsky, an electrifying work, with
the invaluable help of her own conductor, the eminent,
Charles Dutoit, you can see it in her trusting, ever
soulful intermittent gaze 
 
be assured you will be dazzled 
 
 
the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, which accompanies
her, is a symphony orchestra of the Netherlands, considered
one of the very best in the world  
 
 
Richard