Review: Rózsa and Bartók- Violin Concertos

Leader of the London Symphony Orchestra since 2010, this is Roman Simovic’s second concerto album. Previous releases include two recordings in which he directs the LSO String Ensemble, and the complete Paganini caprices for violin solo. (A concerto album featuring the Tchaikovsky and Glazunov concertos with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra is not readily available.)

Rózsa & Bartók: Violin Concertos

Roman Simovic

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Rózsa wrote his concerto in just six weeks during the summer of 1953. He had renewed his MGM Hollywood studio contract the previous year, with a clause that gave him three summer months off each year so that he could work exclusively on concert music. The Violin Concerto is the first fruit of this new circumstance, and this new performance convinced me that it is an absolute masterpiece.

Jennifer Pike recorded this concerto with the BBC Philharmonic under Rumon Gamba Bach in 2012 (Chandos). Listening to it again, Pike’s reading is beautiful but two-dimensional, and the Chandos resplendent soundstage blunts much of the concerto’s sharp-edged angular writing. Simovic’s interpretation is far more persuasive. He is sensitive to the music’s many moods and colors. His phrasing is more imaginative, and one sense a fuller connection to the music’s emotional core.

The first movement’s cadenza is a dazzling technical display (reminding us that the work was written for Jascha Heifetz). The Heifetz recording, made shortly after the work’s premiere, is faster in every movement. But it often seems hyper-focused on virtuosic display. It is certainly thrilling, but Simovic’s more subtle reading is deeply felt and equally compelling.

Simon Rattle has always been a first-rate accompanist, and so it proves here. He and the orchestra have the full measure of the score, both its tetchy angularity and rhapsodic beauty. And there is a noticeable spirit of cooperation and support between these players that only adds to the performance’s success.

The Bartók performance enters a more crowded field. It is also led by a different conductor, Kevin John Edusei, whose several recordings include an earlier performance of this same concerto, with Fabiola Kim and the Munich Symphony Orchestra (Solo Musica). He is an adept and sensitive accompanist, following the flow of Simovic’s interpretation in a natural and spontaneous way. He does not shy away from the score’s moments of garish dissonance and makes the most of its other worldly beauty.

Simovic’s technique is flawless, sometime too much so. He dispatches the numerous double and triple stop passages with disarming ease – surely Bartók intends some sense of effort and difficulty? I sense that in Isabelle Faust’s performance with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding (Harmonia Mundi) and Christian Tetzlaff’s recording with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Hannu Lintu (Ondine). Still, it feels churlish to argue such excellence is a negative.

In gentler passages (especially in the slow movement), Simovic spins a beautiful line, again tapping deeply into the music’s spirit. I was struck by how often this movement evokes the same sound world as Music from Strings, Percussion and Celesta. While Faust and Tetzlaff offer bigger solo personalities, Simovic’s more inward style is both impressive and affecting.

The recording, made in Jerwood Hall at LSO St. Lukes, London, is warm, clear, and intimate, if a little dry (especially when compared to the Chandos or Ondine recordings). But it serves the music well. Liner notes, as usual from this source, are thorough and engaging, and include full biographies of the soloist, both conductors, and a listing of the orchestra roster.

This is first class music making, and even if you already own recordings of both works, you owe it to yourself to hear these new performances.