Search - Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann, Pietari Inkinen :: Brahms, Schumann: Violin Concertos

Ilay Kaler in Brahms & Schumann V Ctos: A Naxos Hit - Music,

Dan Fee | Berkeley, CA USA | 01/15/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Are we not happy to live in an era of great recordings available?



When it comes to the single Brahms violin concerto, we suffer such an embarrassment of musical riches that a glance at the catalog leaves one feeling like a cartoon visitor to good old Scrooge McDuck who often gleefully rolled around in big piles of his money, just to enjoy himself. Our catalog lists the violin greats. Past. Present. Present to future emerging. What lights flash out from among the famous stereo and mono golden age performances? Isaac Stern, Zino Francescatti, Arthur Grumiaux, David Oistrakh, Leonid Kogan, Yehudi Menuhin, Ginette Niveau, Henryk Szeryng, Joseph Szigeti, Nathan Milstein, Erica Morini, and that king of fiddlers, Jascha Heifetz. Add in more violin stars. Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Elmar Olviera, Anne Sophie Mutter, Boris Belkin, Raphael Oleg, Viktoria Mullova, Aaron Rosand, Gil Shaham, Schlomo Mintz, Igor Oistrakh, Emmy Verhey, Kyung Wha Chung, and Gidon Kremer. Add in even younger fiddlers who also shine brightly. Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer, Maxim Vengerov, Joshua Bell, Julian Rachlin, Franz Peter Zimmerman, Christian Tetzlaff, Rachel Barton Pine.



A glance at the news says Vadim Repin and Nikolai Znaider will soon be releasing Brahms violin concertos. Even in this most recent stream of excellent fiddlers, surely we continue to bask in high, wide, and very handsome musical talent. To my ears, two cents' worth, if we currently have a high candidate to take up where Jascha Heifetz left off, I nominate Nikolai Znaider. And thank goodness we have come a long ways from the trail-blazing female fiddlers of the past who were daring enough to swim up stream for musical gold, like Maud Powell and Ginette Niveau and Erica Morini. Nobody in their right mind will want to forgo Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer, and too many other lady fiddlers to list.



Now add in, this disc with Ilya Kaler. He has a distinguished lineage. He won solid gold at three top violin competitions - the Moscow Tchaikovsky International in 1986, the Helsinki Sibelius in 1985, and the Genoa Paganini in 1981. He has long since gone on from those spotlights to a distinguished career, melding music faculty violin mentoring with a professional performance career in the world's concert halls.



Given Kaler's warm to hot tone on this recording, I tried to search to find out what fiddle he is playing. Nobody in particular seems to be noting his instrument. But his glowing, searching tone more or less reminds me of David Oistrakh, though with cooler touches of silver and sweet that my ear associates with fiddler Henryk Szeryng. I am not the only ears that relish Kaler's way with a world-class fiddle. He has gotten raving reviews in violin music, all over.



Now add this disc to the short lists, no matter who else might be on your personal edition.



My complementary standing short list fav choices must include, Heifetz remastered in super audio, Szeryng (Dorati or Haitink or Monteux conducting), Oistrakh (Szell or Klemperer conducting), Concertgebouw Orchestra Amersterdam concertmaster Herman Krebbers, Gidon Kremer, Anne Sophie Mutter (Karajan and Berlin), and Julia Fischer. These top choices do not at all preclude enjoying many of the remaining alternative recordings, and the truth is, I tend to cycle through the best and better of the lot since to my own ears they are all so deserving.



Ilya Kaler does as well with the Brahms concerto as he has been applauded widely for doing on his other outstanding discs. See, for example, reviews of his Paganini solo violin caprices (Naxos), or of his Ysaye solo violin sonatas (Naxos). Rounding out the Naxos side of his ongoing concerto catalog, we may also find strong recordings of the Szymanowski 1 & 2, Paganini 1 & 2, Shostakovich 1 & 2 violin concertos, plus the Tchaikovsky and Dvorak and Glazunov violin concertos. Like the fiddle master that he clearly is, Kaler deftly balances the many-sided challenges in his Brahms. He is, after all, playing one of the great violin concertos with the most deeply contexted symphonic thinking. He is to that extent a star shining bright in the larger orchestra constellations of the shining musical skies. He also knows how to stand center stage and deliver in the many concerto passages where the composer asks the fiddle to be the star. And he interweaves seamlessly between and among this famous concerto's mind-boggling music. Something fresh and something of the golden age fiddle sound graces this reading, and it is doubly nice to have it offered on a budget label like Naxos.



The band is the Bournemouth Symphony, led by youngish conductor Pietari Inkinen. If you want a further glimpse of Inkinen at work in front of an orchestra, just look for him in video music clips on YouTube. So far as I can tell from this disc, seconded by those video music clips, Inkinen is anything but a superficial flash in the pan. He keeps a good grip on tempo and instrumental balances, even as he really encourages the Bournemouth players to breathe and phrase and lift. And all so warmly. I find myself wondering how Inkinen would do in the Brahms symphonies - but of course, Naxos already has had another conducting star assigned to that (Marin Alsop).



The second violin concerto on this disc is the less well known one, from Robert Schumann. It was not often played in concerts until the third decade of the past century when various fiddlers took it up as something of a musical cause. Schumann's concerto would have contrasted better on this disc, if only the Brahms could have followed it. To my ears - and I am still keeping an open musical mind on this issue? - Schumann's violin concerto strikes me rather as does his much more famous (and more often played) cello concerto.



That said. Kaler and band do very nicely on the Schumann, too. All the nuanced fiddling gifts that help bring fire and light and warmth to the Brahms, do their service in the other composer. I think this Schumann rises high, to keep company with my other Schumann performance fav, the Gidon Kremer recording on EMI.



Aside from wishing that the Schumann had come first, the only other wish I could make would be that this disc were available in super audio surround sound. Such a fine reading surely deserves the best high resolution capture, and Naxos has already published several other fine SACD editions.



Five stars, recommended. Check out the other Ilya Kaler discs, too. He elevates heart and mind and music when he plays. Is there a super audio new Beethoven violin concerto by Kaler, lurking somewhere in the dim recesses of a Naxos future? Hope, hope, hope, hope."