Violinists Take a Bow on CDs

We are blessed with young violinists today; not just kids who play faster and more accurately than seems possible, but musicians who are personalities and risk-takers. Charismatic pianists (as differentiated from merely super-accomplished ones) being in short supply, the star fiddler is now the soloist of choice.

Italian-born, American-educated Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is one such violinist: as flamboyant offstage as on, a provocative, somewhat zany talk-show guest who, it is reasoned, brings youthful, pop style to the staid world of The Classics. A hip, crossover sort of person who nonetheless plays “serious” music.

If there is a hint of the manufactured about the Salerno-Sonnenberg persona, her playing is natural, arresting and individualistic, as evidenced in a coupling of the Brahms Concerto and the Bruch G-minor Concerto (EMI/Angel 49429).

She does tear into the familiar music with exaggerated aggressiveness, paying the price with instances of squawky tone. But her partner, Edo de Waart, leading his Minnesota Orchestra, is a calming force, keeping Salerno-Sonnenberg’s gutsy, at times overwrought, playing from becoming untracked.

The young Britisher Nigel Kennedy has not achieved talk-show celebrity, although his funky garb, bristle-brush coif and professed taste for rock and jazz indicate the presence of mass-market packagers too. If, as should be the case, the playing counts above all, Kennedy should have the world at his feet.

Following past recorded successes with the Elgar and Sibelius concertos, Kennedy returns with a program of the familiar Mendelssohn Concerto, the Bruch G-minor (the favored war horse among the younger fiddlers these days), and Schubert’s Rondo in A (EMI/Angel 49663). Jeffrey Tate sturdily leads the English Chamber Orchestra in support.

Kennedy too can play with demonic drive, but he is no less impressive at maintaining the long line. Unlike Salerno-Sonnenberg, his tone doesn’t shatter under pressure. This fascinating artist is, inexplicably, a little-known presence on the Los Angeles concert scene.

After a recording hiatus of several years, Korean-born Kyung-Wha Chung returns (on EMI/Angel 49858) with a knockout Dvorak Violin Concerto, sumptuously backed by Riccardo Muti and his Philadelphia Orchestra.

Chung has it all: gloriously wide-ranging tone, bull’s-eye intonation, intense rhythmicality and a feeling for the arching Romantic line--the slow movement of the Concerto is taken in vast phrases, her bow seemingly never leaving the strings.

Fault Angel, however, for stinginess in pairing (on a full-priced CD) the Concerto with its all-too-usual disc mate: Dvorak’s attractive but brief Violin Romance in F minor, a total of 45 minutes of playing time. When the consumer is asked to pay in the vicinity of $15 per CD, quantity must be consideration.

If this inequity is caused by the glamorous presence of Muti and his orchestra, then the price is too high--irrespective of their unquestioned excellence.

In her recording of the 24 Paganini Caprices for solo violin (CBS 44944), the 18-year-old Japanese dazzler Midori again displays fingers as agile as any in the business, as well as intelligence, taste and all those other good, boring things. Most important, she radiates an enthusiasm that renders “musical criticism” irrelevant. Midori is the essence of music-making as a joyful, recreative art.

And the joy of old, which seems to have given way to people-pleasin’ shtick and a hint of jadedness in the recent work of Itzhak Perlman, returns in an unlikely vehicle, the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto (EMI/Angel 49814). Its usually depressing first three movements are so lushly executed that one revels rather than recoils, while Perlman slams into the burlesca finale with diabolical glee, lustily seconded by Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic. This recorded-in-concert program also includes Glazunov’s bighearted Violin Concerto, gorgeously ladled out by the same forces.

In contrast to Perlman’s fat, vibrant performance, Soviet emigre Viktoria Mullova is all patrician, slender-toned elegance in her sleekly modern, equally satisfying reading. The stylish accompaniments here and in the coupling, Prokofiev’s Second Concerto, are by Andre Previn and the Royal Philharmonic (Philips 422 364).

Without Perlman and Mullova fresh in the ear, one might welcome the efforts of French violinist Nell Gotkovsky more enthusiastically. She is a strong, highly accomplished, if rather literal-minded executant, in the Shostakovich First and gives her considerable all for the formula-glum Second Concerto in its CD debut (Pyramid 13493). She deserves better than the routine accompaniments of the Bulgarian Radio Symphony under Vassil Kazanjiev’s drab direction.