Vengerov a Standout but Lacks Curiosity

At age 22, Maxim Vengerov is already one of the world’s great violinists.

Wednesday night, in his recital at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, he demonstrated once more, as he has for eight hard-to-believe years since his first recording, an unmistakable tone, made of the finest plush velvet. As always, he appeared downright cavalier about his phenomenal technique. The faster he played, the more effortlessly he seemed to glide. When slow expression was called for, he exhibited a pulsating sound and made big phrases burst with emotion. As for intonation--you could bet money on it.

This is playing that is wise beyond the violinist’s years. Yet it is also properly full of a young man’s thrill seeking. Many will recall Vengerov’s appearance on the Grammys last year, shredded horsehair flying from the bow as he made an unforgettable impression in a Shostakovich concerto and got the evening’s biggest ovation. He looks great on television, and he looks great on stage, arching his back, neck and body limber and expressive, reminiscent of old drawings of Paganini. He plays as if born to the fiddle, to the stage, to music.

Even in our age, when we take for granted fabulous violinists--from the newest superstars, such as Gil Shahan or Midori, to the next pre-pubescent wonder--Vengerov easily stands out.

Indeed, he appears to lack but one thing--curiosity. And judging from Wednesday’s program, a lack of imagination could ultimately rob Vengerov of achieving true musical greatness.

Vengerov withheld the details of his program until the 11th hour, as if he had a surprise to spring on the audience. That surprise was Elgar’s dowdy Violin Sonata, written when the composer was 60. The 1918 work is not his most successful piece, falling back on one 19th century formula after another in an effort to keep the new century at bay. Vengerov, to his credit, had the music’s full measure under his bow, finding just the right subtle dynamics and rich, full-bodied tone to match Elgar at his most overstuffed and autumnal. But there is little life left in this music other than superficially pleasing melodies, and it is a curious accomplishment for a young player to seem so comfortable with that. (To his credit, Nigel Kennedy, in his punk days, used to like to bat the sonata around a bit.)

Next came the only significant music of the evening--Mozart Violin Sonata No. 32 in B-flat, K. 454--and Vengerov seemed to have little sense of how to make the composer sound very different from Elgar. Again, one could marvel at the extreme smoothness and facility of the playing, at the sense of elegant and lively phrasing. But the big romantic gestures tended to fall flat in music that requires a greater sense of spontaneity, a lighter and more dramatic touch.

Vengerov devoted the second half of the recital to a composer for whom he has an authentic feel, and it would be hard to imagine any other violinist matching him in the way he captured the spirit of Tchaikovsky in a series of miniatures. These character pieces--”Serenade Melancolic,” “Souveniers d’un lieu cher”and Waltz Scherzo--are Tchaikovsky’s complete solo violin music (save the famous concerto), but they are not music of much ambition and they add up to very little musically.

For encores, Vengerov was both at his most irresistible and frustrating. It would be impossible to find encore pieces, which he made a big show of choosing on the spot with his pianist, Igor Uryash, more cliche-ridden than the showpieces by Bazzini, Kreisler, Wieniawski. Yet he played them faster, more brilliantly and, more amusingly, than I’ve ever heard them done. Needing to outdo himself, he did, by ending with a shamelessly heart-rending version of Massenet’s Meditation from “Thais.”

These encores made for a great show. And Uryash, a sophisticated accompanist, was as alert to their dazzle as he had been to every other demand the program made on him. Here, in particular, he provided Vengerov with a safety net for his daring virtuosity.

Vengerov, who opens the Hollywood Bowl playing the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic on July 8, will follow that with a Bowl recital the next evening, and Bazzini, et. al. are listed on the program. It will surely make a spectacular entertainment for a summer’s eve. But this is still April, and it is a depressing thought that the world’s most promising violinist already has summer and show business on his mind.