Around the World, Fiddlers Galore--and Then Some

We are living in an era of violinists, with an unprecedented profusion of young talent converging on the concert hall and the recording studio.

Every month seems to bring forth some new, hugely hyped youngster, more often than not from the former Soviet Union. This month’s entrant is Lithuanian-born Julian Rachlin, who, unobtrusively backed by Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic, presents Saint-Saens’ Third Concerto and Wieniawski’s Second (Sony Classical 48373).

That the twentysomething or even younger Rachlin (Sony’s biographer hedges) has the standard-issue flying fingers goes without saying. What else he may have, aside from a penchant for a consistently applied fast vibrato, is difficult to ascertain in such a dusty, overstuffed piece of salon furniture as the Wieniawski. But there is much to like in his rapturous crooning of Saint-Saens’ very pretty slow movement.

Still, for half the price of this disc, and on the same label (46506), you can get Cho-Liang Lin’s polished, vital performance as part of a Saint-Saens spectacular that also has Yo-Yo Ma playing the A-minor Cello Concerto and Cecile Licad as soloist in the G-minor Piano Concerto. Which isn’t Rachlin’s fault.

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The repertory for the major-label debut (RCA Victor 60942) of Anne Akiko Meyers, a 22-year-old native of San Diego, may be only marginally more substantial than Rachlin’s program, but Lalo’s “Symphonie Espagnole” and Bruch’s “Scottish Fantasy” are given a fresh glow by the subtlety and sophistication of her playing.

Meyers’ technique is unassailable, her tone sweet, firmly focused and colored to suit the needs of the moment. Most important, she projects the decisiveness of attack and solid rhythmicality this music needs to keep it from cloying.

The Royal Philharmonic, under Jesus Lopez-Cobos’ purposeful direction, provides strong support where mere accompaniment is usually considered sufficient.

Meyers shows like qualities in a recording she made at the tender age of 18: the luscious Concerto by Samuel Barber (which she will play with the Pacific Symphony in May), sympathetically seconded by the same Royal Philharmonic, this time conducted by Christopher Seaman.

This would be recommended as the recording of choice in a strong field but for one huge rub: It is available only in Japan, on the oddly named Pony Canyon label, which also has, among other valuable material strictly for local consumption, a recent traversal by the Bartok String Quartet of Budapest of its namesake composer’s six masterpieces. Any distributors around here looking for some hot stuff?

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Speaking of hot stuff, violinist, television personality and self-styled provocateur Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is yet another violinist having a go at the suddenly popular Barber Concerto (EMI 54314). While she too has the measure of the work, her tone becomes strident under pressure, and one senses a certain rhythmic laxity in the slow movement.

Her collaborator is Maxim Shostakovich, who conducts the London Symphony and provides the requisite thrust in the coupling, the A-minor Concerto of his father, Dmitri. And until the final five minutes of this underappreciated work, Salerno-Sonnenberg sustains its big lines and somber mood admirably. In the brief, bristling finale, however, she is overmatched by the score’s technical demands.

The rude joke of this movement falls flat with a soloist insufficiently at ease to assume its starring role. That is not the case in the boffo recorded turns by Itzhak Perlman (EMI), Lydia Mordkovitch (Chandos) and Viktoria Mullova (Philips).

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Combine the swoony, sinuous lyricism of Delius’ Violin Concerto--the one work in the modern repertory, or at least on its periphery, with as high a sugar content as the Barber--and the bright talents of yet another new star of the violin, Britain’s Tasmin Little, and you have the makings--given the right tie-in, say, using it as a movie score--of a crossover hit (Argo 433 704).

Little brings equal doses of hard-nosed drive and moonstruck ecstasy to her assignment, while Charles Mackerras, an old Delius hand--if without quite the relaxed, transfiguring touch of Sir Thomas Beecham--conducts the Welsh National Opera Orchestra here and in half a dozen additional Delius beauties, including “On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring” and “Summer Night on the River.”