ROSZA: 1Violin Concerto in D, Op. 24; BARTOK: Violin Concerto No. 2 – Roman Simovic, violin/ London Symphony Orchestra/ 1Sir Simon Rattle/ Kevin John Edusel – LSO Live LSO00886 (73:28) (10/18/24) [Distr. by PIAS] ****:
Recorded live in June (Rosza) and October (Bartok) 2022, these two Hungarian violin concertos receive high-gloss treatment from Russian artist Roman Simovic (b. 1981) who, since 2010, has served as principal for the London Symphony Orchestra. Each of the concertos has its origin in a noted violin virtuoso: Rosza conceived his concerto for Jascha Heifetz in 1956, on speculation that Heifetz would approve the first movement individually. Bartok wrote his 1938 concerto for Zoltan Székely, initially intending to provide the Hungarian virtuoso with a single movement set as a theme and variations. In both cases the dedicatees insisted on fully developed, three-movement concertos, which have become more or less standard repertory for accomplished soloists with various orchestras.
Miklos Rosza (1907-1995) had already established himself as both a serious classical musician and a composer of celebrated Hollywood scores when, in 1952, he arranged with MGM studios to receive three months’ summer leaves for concert-music composition. Drawing motifs from a youthful, unpublished violin concerto, Rosza retired to an estate in Rapallo, Italy to rework his ideas for its 1956 debut, having already made contact with Jascha Heifetz via the artist’s piano accompanist, Emanuel Bay. A Romantic ethos cross-fertilized by Hungarian and Magyar folk elements infiltrates the score, which doubtless impressed Heifetz with its innate value. An uneasy rhythmic kernel sets the mood into which Simovic injects the rasping, penetrating tone of his 1709 Stradivarius. The music fluctuates between major and minor modes of D, no less alternating duple and triple meters. Marked Allegro non tanto ma passionato, the first movement combines moments of thin, seductive textures with brooding melancholy in the bass and angry declamations from the brass and battery. Episodes of counterpoint occur, until the original clarinet melody asserts the theme after an introspective, rhapsodically double-stopped, violin cadenza. Solo viola, strings, and harp contribute to the fertile mix, seductive much in the manner of Rosza’s patented film scores. The coda achieves some wild aggression via Rattle and his honed LSO, with a feverishly driven series of scalar passages from Simovic to a percussive close.
The second movement, Lento cantabile, seems patented for the suave Heifetz delivery. Simovic requires no apologies for his equally sympathetic realization of a dreamy, nocturnal meditation, a sustained melodic arch occasionally interrupted by brass and string proclamations. The bucolic sentiment returns, airy in the manner of a serenade, undergirded by rich bass harmonies and pedal brass. Simovic exploits the upper register of his instrument, urging its flute tone to compete with the harp in a misty texture that injects a touch of orchestral magic by way of delicate scoring at the coda.
The last movement, Allegro vivace, injects adamant energy, on a par with what we expect from Prokofiev and Khachaturian for impetuosity. Solo Simovic plays both whimsically and stridently at moments, the writing virtuosic in the Paganini or Sarasate style, exploiting ricochet bowing and shifting bow positions. Rattle’s ensemble hustles through their part in total synchronicity with Simovic, including some quick taps from the snare drum before another romantic interlude for violin, harp, strings, and selected woodwinds. The flamboyant energy returns once more, not to be denied by either a rasping declamation or stuttered gallop from Simovic, the music’s becoming unbridled and explosive, a sultry, scintillating dance of insistent power. A few pizzicato strokes and a double stop, and the mania comes to a thudding halt.
When once Bartok’s Second Violin Concerto aroused dissent and controversy, its diaphanous opening two measures, strummed by a harp’s repeating a B major triad, has become common virtuosic fare. A pentatonic group: B, F#, A, E, B establishes a ground plan for the entire work, whose last movement restates the thematic elements in cut time. Six bars into the Allegro non troppo Roman Simovic imposes his plaintive and later ferociously driven contribution, often moving sentimentally in tandem with the harp. The pungent rhythmic syntax borrows from Magyar verbunkos folk impulses, dotted notes in duple meter. The secondary melody utilizes all twelve tones of the chromatic scale – perhaps a debt paid to Liszt’s Faust Symphony – but certainly a swipe at Schoenberg, still remaining securely in the traditional, tonal system. A modal, quarter tone effect leads to Simovic’s startling, “gypsy” cadenza, passionate and austere, at once. The coda virtually blares and shouts forth, a potent statement for solo and orchestra, the latter driven by German conductor Kevin John Edusel, noted for his work in Fort Worth, Texas and in Munich.
Marked Andante tranquillo, the second movement offers a theme in G and six variations in graduated tension. The beginning arises out of a sonic haze, the harp and timpani in soft punctuation. The soundscape lights up with woodwinds and celesta, though Simovic plays acerbic double stops as the music seems to float onward. The relatively magical mood breaks at the scherzando section that involves a snare drum, string pizzicatos, and harp glissandos. The music had paused, static momentarily, only for the whimsical scherzando to have punched pizzicatos announce its intention. The last of the variations dissipates the texture, a dreamy evaporation sweetly lulling us into an eerie acceptance.
The final movement, Allegro molto, takes the material of movement one and converts it into an athletic, robust waltz. Between sound of Nature and shrieking banshee effects, we have reminiscences of the grotesque world of The Miraculous Mandarin. The Simovic part has become manic and near hysterical, convulsive to extreme. The orchestra offers some colorful polyphony, festive and ironic, before Simovic plays an askew version of the waltz, to which the LSO responds euphorically. The timpani announces another “Roman” assertion, joined by brass and winds, the whole swirling to a kind of bucolic, lush resonance. The “sizzling” effect from Simovic alerts us that the final cadence is nigh, the trumpets and company (with harp) affirming the last trump. While Bartok meant his original version to end with the orchestra, Szekely insisted the piece end like a concerto and not a symphony.
—Gary Lemco
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