Joshua Bell, violin = TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35; BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77; WIENIAWSKI: Violin Concerto - Cleveland Orchestra/Ashkenazy - Decca (2)

Joshua Bell, violin = TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35;
BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77; WIENIAWSKI: Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 22; SCHUMANN: Violin Concerto in D Minor - Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts Cleveland Orchestra (Tchaikovsky; Wieniawski)/ Christoph von Dohnanyi conducts Cleveland Orchestra (Brahms; Schumann) - Decca B0004204-02  58:39; 68:00 (Distrib. Universal)****:

 

While it seems a bit incongruous for us to be celebrating a Joshua Bell Edition, given his relative youth and the currency of his 1988 Tchaikovsky and Wieniawski and 1996 Brahms and Schumann readings, there we have it. Bell, who sports a supremely sweet tone in the manner of Kreisler, plays the large concertos with intelligence and affection, and his intonation is exact. The Schumann and the Wieniawski concertos are the sleepers in this collation, with Ashkenazy's taking the uncut version of the orchestral score in the latter, so the scale of the piece gains, where the Heifetz version eviscerated all but the virtuoso's part. The Schumann Concerto - championed by Kulenkampff, Menuhin, and Szeryng - is a baroque exercise in singularity of affect, since all of the musical material derives from one cloth in spite of an attempt to make a third-movement polonaise out of its gloomy character.

 

The big concertos, those by Tchaikovsky and Brahms, enjoy the sonic luster that the Cleveland Orchestra can project when it is wound tight by virtuoso conductors. The Brahms has a bit more warmth than the Tchaikovsky, and Bell supplies his own cadenza for the first movement. The motoric power of the Brahms comes through more in the style of Milstein, so the interplay of violin, flute, and French horn in the middle of the development section is an episode to cultivate. Bell's cadenza has moments of Bach partita spliced into the threads of the Allegro's figures, then its rolling arpeggios and double stops borrow from Mendelssohn before we return to the plaintive woodwind and horn accompaniment for the coda. Both the Wieniawski and the Brahms benefit from enthusiastic, gypsy-style filigree, played with muscularity and conviction.

 

--Gary Lemco

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