PROKOFIEV: Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major, Op. 19; Chout Suite, Op. 21a; GLAZUNOV: Violin Concerto in A Minor, Op. 82 – Joseph Sivo, violin/Suisse Romande Orchestra/ Horst Stein; London Symphony Orchestra/Claudio Abbado (Chout)
HDTT HDCD167, 60:10 [CD-Rs or 96K DVD-Rs] www.highdeftapetransfers.com ****:
Taken from 1971 and 1996 (Chout) London/Decca prerecorded 4-track tapes, this richly coloristic trinity of transfers allows us to savor the virtuosity of Joseph Sivo–noted for his pedagogy at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna–and the late German conductor Horst Stein (1928-2008), who had worked with luminosities Joseph Keilberth and Clemens Krauss at Bayreuth.
The D Major Prokofiev Concerto, all hallucinated figures and whirling dervishes of sound, finds plastic sympathy in Sivo and Stein, although their unsentimental tempos may be too quick for some, more sentimental tastes. The demonized colors of the second movement Scherzo assault our ears with phenomenal verve, and in full-dimensional sonics.
The more romantic Glazunov Concerto luxuriates in the string, harp, and woodsy timbres of old Russia, especially as the violin moves to the Andante sostenuto’s big theme with harp and string halo surrounded by French horn and a soaring, muscular expressive line. Certainly competitive with equally entrancing, commercial versions by Marcovici, Oistrakh, and Milstein, this Sivo version resonates with lyrical fluent sympathy. The harp part alone convinces me we inhabit exalted regions. The pursuant variants on the main theme carry both bravura and bluster, as well as that tint of Russian melancholy the flute part cannot entirely assuage. The last movement, Allegro, plays with martial and bouncy rhythms, the brass in glowing resilient colors. Violin and French horn engage in a suave sliding duet over a pizzicato bass line, the tension and woodwind fanfares increasing along with the accents, the triangle’s ringing over the stir of drunken variations. The last two minutes has the music resembling a bacchanal from The Seasons, and Sivo running up and down the fingerboard, slides and double-stops aplenty, the mix a brilliant rush of cascading energy to wonderfully splashy conclusion.
Prokofiev’s ballet Chout (The Buffoon) was the composer’s attempt to recreate the success of Stravinsky’s Petrouchka in his own terms for the Diaghilev Ballet Russe. The weird story-line, which has seven buffoons slaying their own wives and people being transformed into nanny-goats, combines virtuoso charm with macabre grotesquerie, of which the clarinet part is a clear representative. In the original London LP, Abbado led excerpts from Romeo and Juliet with this sassy, extroverted score. Oriental elements, bitonality, and moments of romantic reverie converge as the score progresses; in the last selection, Le marchand s’eloigne, the tuba grunts and growls with decisive aggression. Splendid string and woodwind ensemble from the LSO throughout testify to the superlative level of execution this orchestra could produce when sufficiently fired up by an enthusiastic conductor. Highly recommended to audiophiles who like their sounds tart and spicy.
– Gary Lemco
