Taking Up the Concerto Challenge

The concerto is always, on some level, a power struggle, which is surely why it has been such a long-running spectator sport. An individual confronts a group. The composer sets up an occasion for conflict and/or cooperation. Another dynamic takes place between conductor and soloist--who is in charge? Composers challenge performers with demands for excessive virtuosity. The circumstances are always complex, and given the number of concerto recordings that never cease to pour forth, as well as the number of concertos that continue to be written, the process remains ever fascinating.

**1/2 BRAHMS: Violin Concerto: STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto,

Hilary Hahn, violin; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, conductor, Sony Classical

**1/2 BRAHMS: Violin Concerto, Kyung Wha Chung, violin;

Vienna Philharmonic,Simon Rattle, conductor, EMI Classics

For Brahms, the concerto was an epic form, with the soloist as a protagonist in a novel interacting with a host of characters (other instruments in the orchestra) and in a variety of different musical situations. Hilary Hahn, at 22, may still be a little short on life experience to be a complete Brahmsian. But no matter, she gives a considered, serious, eminently musical and altogether satisfying account of the concerto, beautifully played. Equally luxurious is her playing of the smaller Stravinsky concerto.

But Hahn needs more substantial accompaniment than the facile background supplied from Neville Marriner and his chamber orchestra.

Indeed, if Hahn had the benefit of Simon Rattle’s powerful accompaniment and the backing of the Vienna Philharmonic, something special might well occur (as it might when she plays the Brahms with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in May). Unfortunately, Rattle’s highly enthusiastic conducting brings out the worst in Kyung Wha Chung, whose tone is no longer as secure as it once was and who compensates with raw aggression. Rattle fills out his disc with a powerfully individual interpretation of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, but most collectors will want to wait for Rattle’s Beethoven complete symphony set with the Vienna Philharmonic, which will be released this year.

****BERIO: “Voci”, Kim Kashkashian, viola; Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies, conductor, ECM

***1/2BALADA: Piano Concerto No. 3; Concierto Magico; Music for Flute and Orchestra, Rosa Torres-Pardo, piano; Eliot Fisk, guitar; Magdalena Martinez, flute; Barcelona Symphony and Catalonia National Orchestra, Jose Serebrier, conductor, Naxos

Soloists love to lead an orchestra in a merry dance, and folk music has frequently found its way into concertos (the last movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto is gypsy-inspired). In “Voci” (Voices), from 1984, Luciano Berio transcribes Sicilian songs and lullabies for viola, then places the tunes in a thick and sumptuously resonant orchestral blanket the likes of which only Berio, with his love for layered sound, can create. Much of the music is eerie to begin with, and it becomes all the more so once the Italian composer is through with it. Also on this splendidly performed, recorded and produced disc, which will be released later in the month, are field recordings from Sicily of the original folk songs and another folk-infused work by Berio, “Naturale,” for viola, percussion and tape.

Leonardo Balada, a composer who has taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for the past 30 years, also updates folk sources, though ones from his native Barcelona, in his “Concierto Magico” for guitar and orchestra.

Like Berio, he has found a voice that is excitingly modern yet rooted in his own culture. Balada’s strong style--sensual yet strikingly percussive--is also readily apparent in his latest Piano Concerto and the Music for Flute and Orchestra; all three concertos are from the late ‘90s.

The performances are first-rate, and a budget price is welcome encouragement for the curious to take a chance on something new.

**1/2 PROKOFIEV: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, Leila Josefowicz, violin; Symphony, Orchestra of Montreal, Charles Dutoit, conductor, Philips

Leila Josefowicz seems to reinvent herself every year or two, and she is still young enough to get away with it. No more the nice girl these days, but rather the raw, hard-hitting downtowner. Here, with Charles Dutoit willing to give her all the rope she wants, Josefowicz attacks Prokofievian melancholy with a brutally hard edge. Her bizarre interpretations are intriguing at least the first time around. She is at least a young player with ideas, even if not always good ones.

****RABINOVITCH: “La Triade”, Yayoi Toda, amplified violin; Orchestra of Padova and Veneto, Alexandre Rabinovitch, conductor Doron Music

Alexandre Rabinovitch is best known as a pianist and conductor who often performs Mozart, Brahms and Rachmaninoff with his companion, Martha Argerich.

But he is also a breathtaking Minimalist composer who infuses Philip Glass-type repetitive rhythmic enthusiasms with a grippingly intense Russian soulfulness. The half-hour “La Triade” (The Triad), written in 1998, is a violin concerto as mystic rite. Rabinovitch calls it a response to an African concept of human nature as made up of the perishable soul, the body and the imperishable soul. Other cultures join in, as well. The second movement is trance music, inspired by the ecstasy of the Hindu god Siva; the third movement’s transfigured stillness proposes a union between St. Teresa of Avila and the Tao. Amplified solo violin and orchestra each encourage the other into ever more rapt figures creating a hallucinogenic effect. Also on the disc is Rabinovitch’s choral work “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” a 45-minute mesmeric excursion into the inner recesses of the chant “Om mani padme hum.”

**** BEETHOVEN: Piano Concertos, Various artists in historic performances, Andante

**1/2 BEETHOVEN: Piano Concertos, Russell Sherman, piano; Monadnock Music Festival Orchestra; James Bolle, conductor GM Recordings

Andante’s four-CD set (available through www.andante.com) offers a marvelous survey of legendary performers playing Beethoven’s five piano concertos. Made between 1939 and 1947, the classic recordings feature eight pianists (the last three concertos are duplicated in different performances) and each with a distinct personality. Arthur Rubinstein plays the Third Concerto with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony; Rudolf Serkin, the Fifth (the “Emperor”) with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic. One particularly interesting contrast is between Walter Gieseking dashing through the Fourth in wartime Dresden as though without a care in the world and Clara Haskil playing it with solemn, gracious sensuality in London shortly after the war. Transfers from the 78-rpm discs are better than they’ve ever been.

Russell Sherman’s traversal of the five Beethoven concertos, recorded live at the Monadnock Festival in 2000, is, on the other hand, a single-minded point of view. A cult figure in the Boston area, the pianist brings a great deal of sensitivity and thoughtfulness to these works. At times he can be mesmerizing, but there are too many dead patches where he doesn’t always overcome the sluggish accompaniments (every movement is played slower than on any interpretation on the Andante set).

***1/2 MENDELSSOHN Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Gewandhaus Orchestra; Herbert Blomstedt, conductor, Decca

Mendelssohn’s piano concertos have never had the popularity of his beloved Violin Concerto. But the elfin, melodic first, and the darker, more robust second are both major works. Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s cool, elegant style, clear tone and rhythmic precision suit Mendelssohn well, as does Herbert Blomstedt’s careful conducting. The Gewandhaus was Mendelssohn’s orchestra in Leipzig and plays his music as though it still is.

** TCHAIKOVSKY, Piano Concerto No. 1, Fazil Say, piano; St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Yuri Temirkanov, conductor Teldec Classics

A vibrant Turkish pianist, Fazil Say is yet another young player eager to put his stamp on one of the most famous concertos of all. Ever insistent, he begins Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto by overemphasizing the crashing chords and then attempts to outdo himself for the rest of the work.

Yuri Temirkanov, usually a brilliant Tchaikovskian, is curiously out of step, sometimes all too eager to rhythmically push Say over the edge, other times panting to keep up. Say fills out the disc with Liszt’s Sonata in B Minor, which is also played with a sense of breathless excitement and to more entertaining, if not quite astonishing, effect.

*** LUTOSLAWSKI: Dance Preludes, NIELSEN: Clarinet Concerto, PROKOFIEV: Sonata, Opus 94 (transcribed for clarinet and orchestra), Richard Stoltzman, clarinet; Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Lawrence Leighton Smith, conductor RCA Victor Red Seal

Clarinetist Richard Stoltzman’s playing has never lacked for personality. His problem as he has matured has been the opposite, that of jazzy mannerism. Fussiness pervades everything on this disc, but not always to disadvantage. The Lutoslawski Dance Preludes are, themselves, character pieces and can withstand every exaggeration Stoltzman throws at them. The Nielsen concerto is so quirky in its own right that Stoltzman sounds right at home. But Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata comes out doubly distorted--by Kent Kennan’s clumsy turning it into a clarinet concerto and by Stoltzman’s showy playing of it.

*** TANEYEV Concert Suite for Violin and Orchestra, Pekka Kuusisto, violin; Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor, Ondine

Pupil of Tchaikovsky, teacher of Scriabin, sometimes called the Russian Brahms, Sergei Taneyev was a substantial composer and an interesting one. The movements in his Concert Suite, a large-scale violin concerto, begin conventionally, but give them a minute or two and the fantasy begins, especially when played by the late violinist David Oistrakh. Unfortunately the young Finn Pekka Kuusisto is on the bland side (although technically impressive) and Vladimir Ashkenazy is not much help. Nevertheless, the essential qualities of the score come through, and as a bonus, Ashkenazy conducts the lengthy overture and one entr’acte from Taneyev’s greatest and most ambitious work, the opera “Oresteya.”

*

Mark Swed is The Times’ music critic.