John Adams - Violin Concerto and works by Corigliano, Enescu and Waxman

John Corigliano (b. 1938): Chaconne from The Red Violin

George Enescu (1881-1955): Romanian Rhapsody No.1, arr. Waxman

Franz Waxman (1906-1967): Tristan and Isolde Fantasia

John Adams (b. 1947): Violin Concerto

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Leonard Slatkin

Chloe Hanslip; Charles Owen

This disc surveys the range of twentieth-century American music written for violin and orchestra from a relatively broad perspective, whether in terms of large-scale concertos, virtuosic transcriptions and concert paraphrases, or those works which examine the relationship between soloist and ensemble from a more unexpected angle.

This latter perspective is evident in the Chaconne that John Corigliano (b. 1938) created from his music for the 1998 film The Red Violin. Directed by François Girard, this tells the story of a violin, the last made by a master craftsman, and its journey as it changes hands on the way to becoming the star item at an auction. Rather than create a loose-knit suite out of his film-score, Corigliano took the melody that recurs throughout the film as basis for a chaconne, a set of variations that unfolds over a pattern constantly present in the bass register (often referred to as the 'ground bass'); in the process, guaranteeing both formal and harmonic consistency over a relatively extended span (to which end, it is worth noting that he has since composed a further two movements to create a more traditional concerto-type work). From the soloist's multi-stopped harmony and fugitive orchestral gestures at the beginning, the piece opens out melodically and expressively, the resultant theme reaching a brief but impassioned climax that is countered with aggressive music from the orchestra. The soloist responds accordingly, leading to brutal exchanges that collapse to leave solo woodwind musing plangently over lower strings. The soloist re-enters with similar material, the music continuing in its air of glacial sadness until further harsh exchanges and the return of the yearning main theme. A solo cadenza ensues, crystallizing the music's expressive essence, before a spectral passage for col legno strings (playing with the wood of the bow), brass and percussion brings about a last stage, the main theme now heard climactically on full orchestra as the soloist rushes upwards for the decisive close.

Although he was acclaimed as one of the finest violinists of his age, and recorded a large number of concertos both as soloist and latterly as conductor (notably with his protégé Yehudi Menuhin), the Romanian composer George Enescu (1881-1955) never actually completed a violin concerto of his own. Aside from considerations of time and occasion, he was perhaps also conscious that the highly personal concept of virtuosity he evolved in his maturity was not necessarily suited to a display work such as audiences expected from a performer in his own music. Despite having composed a series of powerfully original orchestral and chamber works, Enescu's name is indelibly associated with the first of two Romanian Rhapsodies he composed in 1901, and which continue a line of nineteenth-century fantasias on national melodies, though the piece is too expertly written to be thought a mere 'potpourri' of tunes. The composer himself made a full transcription for violin and piano, but what is heard on this disc is an arrangement by Franz Waxman that is essentially a paraphrase on the music of the hectic second half of the piece. With the orchestration retained in all essentials, the soloist is left to pursue an animated path through the twists and turns of Enescu's potent musical imagination.

Although he composed a number of concert works both before and after his emigration to the United States, the German-born composer Franz Waxman (1906-1967) remains best known (as does his older Austrian contemporary Erich Korngold) for the numerous scores that made him a mainstay of the Hollywood film scene over three decades. Of several works written for violin and orchestra, the most virtuosic is his Carmen Fantasia, but the one that most reveals his understanding of and affection for Austro-German Romanticism is the Tristan and Isolde Fantasia. An effective concert item, it originally formed an emotional climax to the 1946 film Humoresque, directed by Jean Negulesco with a script by Clifford Odets. This tells the story of an ambitious violinist who becomes emotionally involved with his patroness, with tragic consequences. From a sombre opening in cellos and basses, violin and piano (which has a demanding obbligato part) are heard against the orchestra in what is a free conflation of elements from the Prelude and Liebestod of Wagner's opera. As in the latter, the work builds up to a lyrically effulgent climax (Isolde's line taken over by the violin), before falling away in a close of radiant calm.

The context in which the last work here is presented might suggest that violin concertos are not a prominent feature in American concert music. In fact, there are striking examples among the output of such composers as Samuel Barber [Naxos 8.559044], William Schuman [8.559083], Elliott Carter, Ned Rorem [8.559278] and Philip Glass [8.554568]. To these must be added the Violin Concerto of John Adams, which has achieved a notable success since its première by Gidon Kremer in 1993. The composer has himself stated that his aim was a work in which the violin was enabled to sing constantly throughout, and this is evident throughout each of its three parts, which correspond, in formal outline, to the movements customary in a classical concerto.

Part One is essentially a continuously unfolding line of melody, heard against an orchestral backdrop in which woodwind and brass seem as if caught in a constant state of rising upwards from a discreet, often pizzicato bass in the lower strings. Almost a third of the way through, the soloist becomes more animated, and the overall accompaniment process, with percussion now assuming greater prominence, seems to speed up accordingly, yet without altering its essentially detached expression. The steady accumulation of rhythmic energy takes the movement through to a cadenza, which restores a measure of repose prior to a sombre and speculative close. Part Two is modelled, as is the Corigliano work above, on the form of a chaconne, in which the soloist patiently unfolds its continuous line. Although that line is in an audible state of metamorphosis with regard to its basic melodic components, the sensation is of music trapped in a state of becoming, an apt evocation of the line from the poet Robert Haas, "Body through which the dream flows", which also heads this movement. The harmonic texture periodically increases in density, giving to the music an expressive langour that is intensified by the discreet presence of bell sounds heard from within the orchestra. Part Three is marked Toccare (Toccata), which aptly sums up the movement's virtuoso quality, with soloist and orchestra engaged in an ongoing and rhythmically exacting series of exchanges that more pointedly recall the minimalist gestures of Adams's music from the previous decade. Several distinctive ideas are thrown up in its course, before strings and tom-toms press onwards to the stuttering close.

Richard Whitehouse

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Reviews

American Record Guide, February 2007

The 1993 Violin Concerto - now, strictly speaking, the "First Violin Concerto" - gets its fourth recording (it seems to have become "hugely popular", as the CD box has it, and I'm glad to hear it). Ms. Hanslip is a fine player, as you have to be to manage this knotty masterpiece, and she fares well against the high-level competition. Stephen Haller raver about her Bruch concertos(M/S 2003), and I can only second his comments about her golden tone and assured command. I think, we can dismiss the ragged Kremer (Nonesuch) and also safely put aside Robert McDuffee's Telarc (J/F 2000). That puts the main competition between this and Leyla Josefowicz on BBC's Late Junction label ( with the composer conducting, J/F 2004). I like Ms Josefowicz's recording more this time around and appreciated the extra presence of the composer and the audience. It's hard to say enough about Ms Josefowicz's playing, which seems to grow in vividness on every hearing. Ms Hanslip is altogether mellower, even suave. She and conductor Slatkin stress clarity and detail and give the work a warmer, more laidback approach, but with a clear sense of dramatic purpose. I honestly like both recordings.

Ms Hanslip has cinema and theater in her background - she was the "infant prodigy violinist" in the film adaptation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin with Ralph Fiennes and premiered Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantasia on Phantom of the Opera; the choice of companion pieces reflects this tendency. The opening piece on this program is a Chaconne based on the two principal materials from John Corigliano's score for The Red Violin : the slowly rising scale of the main title and the big mushy tune, 'Anna's Theme'. I must confess I'm clueless as to how specifically this is a Chaconne. It sounds to me simply like a fantasy on cues from the film, and it doesn't work very well as a concert piece. Don't confuse this with the Red Violin Suite, recorded by Eleanora Turovsky and chamber orchestra on Chandos (S/O 2005, with a reduced version of Corigliano's Second Symphony). I didn't think much of that either.

I guess the brief virtuosic conclusion of Enesco's First Romanian Rhapsody, in an arrangement for violin and orchestra by movie music composer Franz Waxman, is meant to serve as a Red Violin continuation (or encore). What other artistic purpose it serves is beyond this review's imagination. Waxman returns in a Tristan and Isolde Fantasia, originally the climax of the 1946 film Humoresque. It makes Wagner sound like Hollywood (rather than the other way around), complete with corny piano arpeggiations and mooning violin commentaries. Yuck.

I'm afraid those fillers place the Adams Concerto in an odd light, as if it were some kind of pops concert entry. It's not. I hope the young and breathtakingly talented Ms Hanslip resists that well-worn road, which management might foist on her if she doesn't take charge herself. She's a beautiful player, and her Adams is well worth hearing. I suppose the hope is that a coupling like this will sell records, and the unwashed masses will move up to the Adams somehow. I doubt that strategy works.