Times review 9 March 07

Maxim Vengerov
GEOFF BROWN
Mozart violin concertos
EMI classics
 
This CD, the first of a Mozart violin concerto set by Vengerov, pants into the station a little late for the composer’s bicentenary year. But no matter. Vengerov is Vengerov, and he doesn’t do Identikit performances. Least of all in this project, nurtured during his recent “gap” year, when he forswore all public displays for the private joys of researching Mozart, taking tango lessons and learning the electric violin.

The disc covers the second and fourth concertos and the later Sinfonia Concertante. Seeking a young, democratic sound, Vengerov joined forces with the ebullient UBS Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra – none of the players older than 30 – and rehearsed with them for three weeks on an Israeli kibbutz.

The sound on these studio accounts is upfront and a tad claustrophobic, with Vengerov and Lawrence Power, his viola partner in the Sinfonia, only just sprouting free from the orchestra. The ensemble spirit is exceedingly high, though the lively treatment of dynamics and phrasing could only have stemmed from Vengerov’s instructions, not the communal ether.

So what is the animating spirit here? Vengerov talks in the notes about evoking “the flavour of the mid-1770s”, whatever that might be. He’s on firmer ground when he mentions securing advice from the singer Cecilia Bartoli. In some of Vengerov’s phrasing you can hear direct echoes of vocal roulades, and the silvery song of his Stradivarius never dies. These are heartfelt, quasi-romantic performances, at their hottest during his own, sometimes disconcerting, cadenzas, which either come decked with Mozart quotes or, following the K211 andante, sit back, indulge and dream.

The sturdiest music here is the Sinfonia Concertante. Here is the disc’s real jewel: a beautifully engineered account, with Vengerov’s gleaming colours powerfully contrasted with the shadowy hues of Power’s viola. The pair enjoy the rapport of twin brothers and the speeds adopted in the first movement, a real allegro maestoso for once, allow them to shape and explore in a manner impossible if hurrying.

Not every listener may find this disc convincing; despite Vengerov’s talk of that 1770s flavour it’s not one for period sticklers. But there is nothing antiseptic here, nor brainlessly glamorous. This is warm, humane music-making