André Previn | Richibi's Weblog

July 19, 2015

Grieg, Piano Concerto in A minor‏

Arthur Rubinstein

_________

inspired by a favoured blogger of
mine who’d highlighted an obscure
composer who’d written an
unforgettable cultural ditty we’d
all heard but never further thought
of, Hugo Alfvén, I was reminded of
another Scandinavian giant, Grieg

stop, watch, don’t just listen, to
Arthur Rubinstein make history
with Grieg’s A minor Piano
Concerto, he is the very
representation of all of the
proprieties of a late 19th-Century
aesthetic, noble, aristocratic,
austere, yet authentic, capable,
firm

André Previn’s orchestral
accompaniment is unobtrusive,
and disappears, for all intents
and purposes, behind the sheer
dedication, conviction, of the
true maestro, the veritable muse,
the instigator, Arthur Rubinstein,
watch him leave all of them behind
in flurries of electrified inspiration

this performance bursts beyond
all literal expectations, expect
nothing short of transcendence

Richard

March 10, 2012

Brahms Violin Concerto – Kyung-Wha Chung (1985)

having had a yen for Brahms lately, his grand, sweeping

concertos, I put on again Kyung-Wha Chung last night,

with André Previn, 1996, doing the Violin Concerto, a

good fit at under fifty minutes, while I simultaneously

washed the dishes – the gods never granted me a

dishwasher, probably to keep me humble, wary of

potentially crippling, I think, hubris

afterwards for the sheer exhilaration of it I wanted to

watch the whole thing over again, but another version

intrigued and beckoned, from 1985, when Chung was of

course younger, less assured, I suspected, her take maybe

less profoundly felt, not yet quite as definitive

but she proved to be again Olympian, on fire, more fierce

in her attack, more defiant, Aphrodite, goddess of love,

beauty, pleasure, this time, still radiant, utterly authoritative

and convincing, paying glorious court to her host of equally

divine peers

this performance is of another, of an utterly transcendental,

order, of the Brahms Violin Concerto you are not likely, nor

are they, ever to see than either so illustrious a rendition

again

Richard

November 12, 2011

Brahms Violin Concerto – Kyung-Wha Chung‏

if, may the gods forbid, you see one concerto only ever in

your lifetime, let it be this one, Kyung-Wha Chung does the

Brahms Violin Concerto incontrovertibly, such performances

as this one are why composers write music, for interpreters

such as she to narrate their musical thought, to speak it

nearly verbally, indelibly, to bring it to unmistakable and

categorical life, to transcendence then even perhaps, as in

this case, to our ineluctable, ineradicable consciousness,

and thereby then to our stars

Kyung-Wha Chung sets the standard here to be achieved for

all artists, in my lifetime she has been the one to displace,

no one, not even the greatest, with the sole exception of

the inimitable of course Glenn Gould, has had the authority,

the brilliance, to outpace her, to outpace them, she is

Minerva, goddess of wisdom, poetry, magic, in outright

and unequivocal command, she is unquestionably and

irrevocably empress here, awesome, she is the highest

expression of music, utterly and irrevocably iridescent,

incontestably and utterly sublime

André Previn, with the Kölner Rundfunksinfonie Orchester,

the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, December, 1996,

supports ably, even admirably, he will make me eat my

earlier not especially flattering about him words

watch

Richard

1 Comment

October 10, 2011

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

despite not having the stature of the other composers

already considered, Felix Mendelssohn, 1809 – 1847,

nevertheless squeezes right up the middle with his

violin concerto in E minor, opus 64, to deliver one of

the greatest violin concertos of all time, perhaps the

most tender of all in contrast to the mightier, more

imperious declamations of the other also more varied

and prolific masters, an archangel among the august

divinities, having earned a place of the very highest

order in their midst with even this one masterful

work, perhaps even of all the most beloved

he squeezed right up the middle chronologically as

well in fact, Beethoven wrote his violin concerto in

1806, while Tchaikowsky and Brahms theirs to my

astonishment each from his own little corner of the

world independently in the very same year, 1878,

a fabulous year, it would appear, for violin concertos

Mendelssohn finished his violin concerto in E minor,

opus 64 in 1844

when I began a few decades ago to explore violin

concertos, my essential resource was the set I had

on disc of all the great ones played, indeed definitively

executed, by Kyung-Wha Chung, who bested then to

my mind all, without exception, even the most

celebrated virtuosos, whom I need not therefore

here recall

until now I had never seen her perform

in this outing she recovers in spades my early adulation,

utterly, she lives and breathes her enchanted instrument,

she is the Mitsuko Uchida of the violin, I can think of no

higher honour, she is meteoric

André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra, who

accompany her, though accomplished, pale beside her

fire, which is throughout riveting

André Previn was married famously to Mia Farrow way

back when, later married our very own Anne-Sophie

Mutter, though they divorced in 2006, he was a pop,

to my mind, conductor, made of serviceable and

always dependable stuff, but never shining, you’ll

have to leave that to his featured brilliant light here,

who will not, I assure you, fail to deliver searing

heat along with the stated incandescence