MOZART: Sinfonia concertante K. 364. Concerto for two pianos K. 365 – Håvard Gimse and Vebjørn Anvik, pianos/ Lars Anders Tomter, viola/ Iona Brown, violin & conducting the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra – Chandos Classics CHAN 10507X, 53:56 **** [Distr. by Naxos]:
Here’s a welcome reminder of the best of conventional Mozart interpretation towards the end of the transition period a decade ago when there was still a clear demarcation line between modern and original-instrument performers. It also serves as an excuse to hear Iona Brown not only playing the fiddle, an inspiring experience in itself, but conducting her Oslo-based Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, a combination that invariably produced strong and eloquent results, richer perhaps than the work she did with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and certainly with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
In fact, Brown was a much underrated conductor, particularly when she put down her violin and led from the podium instead of from the first violin chair where she had the orchestra behind her and the possibility of mutiny every conductor fears. Being on the podium freed her from playing and she could devote her entire attention to shaping and propelling performances. She also had a unique in my experience sense of beating through the space between movements so that each movement seemed to follow in a cosmically proper rhythm. There was no visible evidence of this, but I always felt and it was uncanny. When she died in 2004 at the age of 63, there was still much left for her to do, and I count it a profound musical tragedy that she never had an opportunity to conduct Beethoven symphonies with the world’s major orchestras.
The remarkably similar performances, feature outstanding soloists and performances that move along mixing power and poetry, always willing to pause rhetorically and let the soloists have their way with Mozart’s most touching lyrical thoughts. Neither would be my first choice, especially as pianists Gimse and Anvik play Mozart’s lackluster cadenzas. But the opportunity to hear Brown dig into this great music produces such exhilarating results that I am very glad to have heard them.
The recordings, which were made in two different churches in 1995 and 1996, are thrilling and colorful, especially in the Sinfonia concertante with its extra orchestral violas, and lack only a bit of sweetness to make them special. Eva Barsham’s straightforward liner notes have a certain eloquence of their own. There is a lovely photograph of Brown on the back cover of the notes.
– Laurence Vittes
