An important volume in the library of Russian violin concertos

For many years these concertos were closely identified with their dedicatees, the Myaskovsky with David Oistrakh, the Weinberg (or Vainberg) with Leonid Kogan. More recently Vadim Repin recorded the former as a makeweight for the ubiquitous Tchaikovsky concerto, not a pairing with much appeal for specialist collectors. Repin, like Grubert, is placed close enough to mask orchestral detail, and his glorious tone colour is, for me, fatally compromised by Philips’s harsh yet woolly sound engineering. Grubert may be a less accomplished musician, his intonation is not quite flawless and his expressive range is narrower, but his instrument is reproduced more faithfully, and he is sympathetically accompanied by Yablonsky’s pick-up orchestra.

Gergiev, for Repin, can be unhelpfully brusque for all that his band is no ad hoc group. Traditional as it is, this is music that reveals its innermost secrets slowly, and its self-effacing brand of eloquence needs space. Not that either version quite convinces in the first movement’s interminable cadenza. You’d have to go back to Oistrakh’s 78s for that (there have been transfers on Pearl, Dante Lys and Classica d’Oro).

The edgier, less direct companion concerto dates from 1959 and a substantial utterance it proves to be. There are four movements. As such it is plainly indebted to Shostakovich, Weinberg’s friend and sometime protector, although there is arguably less overt ‘Jewishness’ here than in Shostakovich’s own First Violin Concerto, and there’s certainly more Bartók. The composer’s growing body of fans will tell you that the influence ran both ways. Polish-born and later resident in Moscow (hence the confusion over nomenclature), Weinberg very nearly fell victim to Stalin’s final anti-Semitic campaign, having earlier lost his family to the Nazis.

Naxos provides helpful notes by Per Skans, tracing the links between the Soviet composers and, at its modest asking price, this attractive package is well worth acquiring. True, it’s not all plain sailing. Some listeners will have difficulty with the soloist’s high-lying passages in the first movement of the Myaskovsky – disaster strikes at 6'10" – while the more strenuous stretches of the Weinberg do tend to grate on the ear. What matters is that both works deserve, and should now receive, a wider hearing.

David Gutman
Gramophone, March 2004

Both Miaskovsky and Vainberg were significant figures in Soviet musical life, though in the case of the latter (see below) his career was somewhat more extensive and cosmopolitan. This enterprising Naxos issue brings their skilfully written violin concertos into contention, and the enterprise proves thoroughly worthwhile.

Miaskovsky is best known as the composer of 27 symphonies. They are works of substance in every sense of that word. So too the Violin Concerto he wrote for the great David Oistrakh in 1938. With a playing time of some forty minutes the real challenge in performing this piece is to sustain the music’s scope and scale, of justifying the vision. It is a challenge that this recorded performance manages, if only just. It is dangerous, admittedly, to be really sure about this without studying the work carefully and closely, but it does seem to be the case.

The approach of Miaskovsky the symphonist is mirrored in this concerto, particularly so in the twenty-minute first movement. There is a sure sense of lyrical line from the collaboration of Ilya Grubert and Dmitry Yablonsky, the soloist and conductor. The booklet proclaims the recording to be the product of the ‘Merging Technologies Pyramix’ system, no less, but the sound is not particularly strong, vivid, or atmospheric. If anything the acoustic is wanting in presence. What is more successful is the balancing of solo and ensemble, which for once in a concerto recording affords the violin a realistic perspective and size.

Ilya Grubert is a young player of impeccable credentials, with a most pleasing lyrical line and tone. If there is not a strong priority of virtuosity that is because for Miaskovsky the development of the musical material is always paramount. For this reason, perhaps, it is the central slow movement, a beautifully eloquent Adagio molto cantabile, that makes the most pleasing impression.

As for more instant impressions, the Vainberg Concerto starts imposingly, with a striking rhythmic impact. Shostakovich was an early admirer of the piece, describing it as ‘a magnificent work’. In fact he admired Vainberg as a musician and as a man, and even interceded on the latter’s behalf when he was arrested as ‘an enemy of the people’ by the Communist authorities in 1953. Per Skans, in his excellent insert note, suggests that Vainberg might not have survived had it not been for the death of Stalin that year. Vainberg was of Polish-Jewish descent, as his name reveals, and came to Russia at the end of the 1930s when he fled the Nazi threat. He lived on into the post-Glasnost era.

The back cover of this Naxos issue proclaims the Vainberg Concerto as ‘a large-scale work’, and so it is, though it must be said that its four movements turn out to be a good ten minutes shorter than Miaskovsky’s three movements. But the Vainberg Concerto is a fine composition that justifies its thirty-minute span most convincingly. The stirring opening bars set the tone and there is always an imaginative relationship between solo and orchestra. The development of the material reveals a composer steeped in classical procedures, and possessed of a sure technique, an important consideration in a concerto. There are some telling orchestral touches, such as the distinctive roles accorded to harp and celesta, but as in the Miaskovsky Concerto one has the feeling that more rehearsal time might have paid dividends. This is hardly music that the orchestra will have known intimately.

The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra is another case of the creation of a new ensemble for the purposes of recording, but an ensemble who regularly work together. The Russians have always had a tendency for creating new ensembles as and when required, and these days the standard of the playing is high even if the results do not sound as distinctively Russian as they once did.

Despite these various caveats this is another appealing bargain from Naxos, with typically useful accompanying documentation. Vainberg in particular is a composer we seldom get the chance to hear, and his Violin Concerto is undoubtedly worth hearing. Shostakovich, for one, thought so.

Terry Barfoot

This is well worth getting. Perhaps you have taken an interest in Miaskovsky a result of the fine Naxos-Yablonsky CD of his symphonies 24 and 25. This will give you his most romantically turbulent concerto and introduce you to Vainberg's strongly profiled violin concerto.

Polish origins connect these two composers. Vainberg was born in Warsaw. Miaskovsky was born just outside Warsaw. Vainberg was from the generation after Miaskovsky.

Miaskovsky wrote the Violin Concerto in 1938 and dedicated it to its first performer, David Oistrakh. It was Miaskovsky’s first concerto. He prepared himself by studying the violin concertos of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev.

The Miaskovsky is slightly better known than the Vainberg. It has been recorded before. This is the second all digital version of the Miaskovsky. The first is the Repin more mundanely coupled with the Tchaikovsky on Philips 473 343-2. Also you can still buy the mono Oistrakh version on Pearl GEMM CD 9295 (ADD). The Pearl equates in authority to Sammons/Testament in the Delius and Menuhin/Elgar in the Elgar concerto. It embodies an extraordinary performance which all Miaskovskians must have. Hors de combat but still desirable is the deleted Olympia (OCD134 AAD) in which the fiery clear playing of Grigori Feigin is heard with the USSR Radio SO conducted by Alexander Dmitriev. It is coupled with the 22nd Symphony written four years after the Concerto. Not unsurprisingly the tone of the Pearl orchestra sounds, if not meagre, then certainly weedy by comparison with the full bandwidth sound of this version and the Repin/Gergiev.

The Grubert version has plenty going for it. At 17.48 (first movement) the stomped-out rhythm has not before been accentuated with such impact. The dreamy second movement is laden with a sweet allure and is heavily fragrant with gentle nostalgia (4.02; 8.03). The Prokofiev-like fairytale atmosphere is prominent at 4.32. After the white impetuous argent lightning of those opening gestures a cavalleresco passage rears up rather akin to the Nielsen counterpart. The glittering accompaniment is strangely typical of Rodrigo. This is a lovely recording with room for a sweet and steely delicacy.

After such a hungrily nostalgic concerto the Vainberg sounds very modern and knowing. The 'olde worlde' innocence is banished by a ruthless hunt. The aggression and sourness is not far removed from Shostakovich. The violin has become hunter and sometimes hunted with the music goaded on by a sort of lyric hysteria.

The second movement is touched with the ruminative tragedy of the great and Shostakovich symphonic adagios. The third movement is a deeply impressive lament musing slightly sourly as if a distillation of sad fanfares ringing out across desolate battlefields. For the finale it is as if Vainberg realises he does not have the freedom to end a concerto like that. Instead we have something militarily determined but with a glint in the eye. It works itself up into a manic energy but the work ends daringly with a submissive gesture.

The Vainberg was recorded on Melodiya by its dedicatee the unfairly overshadowed Leonid Kogan. That recording was issued on an EMI LP and Olympia have reissued it and added its original coupling, the Fourth Symphony with the Moldavian Rhapsody as a filler. Kogan's version has much the same standing as Oistrakh's of the Miaskovsky and although the recording quality gulf is not as wide similar merits and demerits apply. Kogan's reading has the creator/collaborator's authority. In his hands the concerto blazes, snivels, laments and exults. I would not want to be without it yet there is room for Grubert.

Naxos have also done us proud with the notes. They are by Olympia's usual provider, Per Skans. He is generous with fresh details of the two works.

What next from this source: the Shtogarenko and the Steinberg? We can hope.

All in all another of Naxos's successes. This is an audacious partnership both between the artists and the juxtaposition of two grand concertos from adjoining generations one firmly rooted in romantic tradition the other having its world marked out by the tragedy of two wars, oppression and pogrom.

Rob Barnett

Here are two Soviet violin concertos that are starting to become better known. Westerners have mistrusted Nikolay Myaskovsky (or "Miaskovsky") somewhat, perhaps, because he was too prolific – nearly thirty symphonies! The work of Mieczyslaw Weinberg (or "Vainberg") is becoming generally more familiar. Chandos, for example, has embarked on a symphony series, whose first release I will be reviewing shortly.

The Myaskovsky concerto was premiered in 1938 by David Oistrakh. Apart from Grubert, its most recent advocate is Vadim Repin, who recorded it with Valery Gergiev for Philips (473343-2). In spite of its late composition date, this is largely "Old School" Romanticism, not far removed from the works of Glazunov and Glière. There is hardly a trace of Socialist Realism in this concerto, which seems blithely unconcerned about the world around it. The first movement often doesn't even sound particularly Russian. This movement, marked Allegro ed appassionato, accounts for more than half of the concerto's 38-minute length. There is a longish cadenza that is well-integrated into the movement's thematic structure. The middle movement is an uncomplicated and …songful Adagio molto cantabile, and finale, Allegro molto, is similarly primary – albeit attractive - within its emotional palette.

Weinberg (1919-1996) was a Pole who fled his homeland in 1939, not emigrating to the West like many, but east to the Soviet Union. He was mentored both by Myaskovsky (who was almost forty years his senior) and by Shostakovich, who intervened when Weinberg was arrested in 1953 for being an "enemy of the people." Shostakovich sometimes praised the music of card-carrying Communist composers who weren't fit to kiss the cuffs of his trousers, but his appreciation of Weinberg feels like the real thing. No surprise, then, that Weinberg's 1960-ish Violin Concerto bears many stylistic resemblances to Shostakovich. The mood is sardonic and tinged with bitterness, the themes are slashing and angular, the scoring is brittle, and the concerto chugs along like a Soviet newsreel. The Adagio third movement is touched with bleak lyricism. Even its four-movement structure is reminiscent of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto, which was just a few years old at the time. Leonid Kogan premiered the concerto. It seems not to have had much exposure in the West.

Grubert is a sweet-toned violinist who must be in his late 40s or early 50s. His teachers included Leonid Kogan, so he has a special connection with the Weinberg concerto. He has the guts for the more physically demanding passages in these works, but he excels in the quieter moments, where his rapt playing commands attention. Yablonsky and the Russian Philharmonic give Grubert excellent support. (The Orchestra began as a recording ensemble drawn from Russia's best musicians, but it now has a life of its own.) The engineering is excellent – Russia has come a long way from the primitive recording technologies of the 1960s and 70s.

This is an excellent coupling. (Most recordings of the Myaskovsky pair it with another concerto you're likely to own already.) Don't hesitate.

Raymond Tuttle
Classical Net, 2004