Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto is not well represented in CD catalogs, yet here is the second release of the work in the last 30 days (the other recording, found on Harmonia Mundi, features Isabelle Faust accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding). In 2008, Hilary Hahn released an extraordinary performance, also featuring the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, but led by Esa-Pekka Salonen. While Liebeck’s new recording does not displace Hahn’s benchmark status, it certainly offers a compelling performance of a work that may well never become part of the standard concerto repertoire.
Part of what made Hahn’s recording so successful was the Romantic warmth she and Salonen brought to their performance, which made the music less forbidding and objective. Liebeck, in his introductory note, suggests a similar interpretative view of Schoenberg’s music, and yet, despite allowing himself 6 additional minutes (35’42” versus Hahn’s 29’41), it is Hahn who seems more overtly Romantic.
Liebeck’s playing is quite extraordinary, every technical hurdle met with impressive fluency and ease – just sample Track 3, beginning at 7’15”. The angular writing, with its many double-stops, and strings harmonics are dispatched with ease; even in the highest registers, Liebeck manages a rich and burnished sound. His subtle and nuanced use of rubato is convincing and sounds entirely natural, while the BBC Symphony plays with exceptional facility, conductor Andrew Gourley ensuring the accompaniment is precise and beguilingly beautiful. Yet somehow one comes away from the performance less moved than Hahn’s – why?
The answer seems to lie in the chosen tempos. Hahn’s is quite the fastest on record. At the time her recording was issued, she made a point of stating she had worked hard to achieve the metronome markings in the score, and there is certainly a more palpable urgency and drive in her performance that makes Liebeck’s performance less overtly passionate in comparison. Moreover, both Hahn, and Faust in her recording released last month, utilize a greater variety of colors from their instrument. Just compare the beginnings of the second movement in each performance – there is a greater sense of fragility in Faust’s performance that draws out an unexpected emotional vulnerability in Schoenberg’s music. It should be noted that Faust’s performance is also 5 minutes slower than Faust, but it never sounds slow because Harding and his Swedish players find more character in the accompaniment. In short, I suspect that reading Liebeck’s liner notes before listening led me to expect an interpretation of subject, Romantic passion, whereas the actual performance is a balance between those ideals and a more objective approach, often heard the Schoenberg performances by Pierre Boulez and Robert Craft. Which approach to this music works best amounts to a personal taste.
Related Classical Music Reviews
- Review: Brahms Complete Symphonies – Berlin staatskapelle, Daniel Barenboim
- Review: Tchaikovsky, Barber Violin Concertos – Johan Dalene
- Review: Beethoven And Sibelius Violin Concertos – Christian Tetzlaff
With the Brahms Violin Concerto, the playing of Liebeck and orchestra is once again unfailingly beautiful, and Gourley ensures that the BBC Symphony Orchestra players are with Liebeck every step of the way. But at 41’29”, this performance is on the slower side, and there is a certain lack of depth and drive in the orchestral sound that makes it seem slower still. Janine Jansen, accompanied by the Orchestra dell’ Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano, takes only 38’40” and Hilary Hahn with the Academy of St. Martin in the Field’s and Sir Neville Marriner comes in at 40’29”. It is not simply a matter of tempos, but rather an interpretative desire to luxuriate in Brahm’s sound world at the expense of forward momentum. This renders the orchestra’s initial introduction tepid, especially when compared to Rattle’s reading with the Vienna Philharmonic, where they accompany Kyung-Wha Chung in an exceptional performance. Jansen’s initial entry (2’45”) is immediately enthralling, her playing at white heat, whereas Liebeck’s first entrance is set at a lower temperature, stubbornly remaining there for much of the performance.
So, a recording that features consistently impressive playing from both soloist and orchestra, albeit in a slightly cool and detached manner that at times seems at odds with the music. The recorded sound is spacious and clear, and the liner notes are first rate. There is certainly room for this reading of Schoenberg’s concerto, and for those who are looking for a well-balanced mix of Romantic warmth and Serialist objectivity, this performance may well prove more engaging than others in the catalog.
Schoenberg – Violin Concerto, Op. 36
Brahms – Violin Concerto Op. 77
Jack Liebeck – Violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Andrew Gourlay – Conductor
Orchid Classics, CD ORC100129
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