United States Numerous: Maxim Vengerov (violin), Polina Osetinskaya (piano). Cal Performances, Zellerbach Corridor, College of California, Berkeley, 23.11.2024. (HS)
Prokofiev – 5 Melodies, Op.35; Violin Sonata No.2 in D main, Op.94a
Franck – Sonata in A significant for Violin and Piano
Ravel – Tzigane
Maxim Vengerov is a generational expertise, a violinist with a stressed thoughts, considerable method and the flexibility to reimagine a bit in a means we mortals may not. All of that was on show at Zellerbach Corridor in Berkeley when he and pianist Polina Osetinskaya attacked music by Prokofiev, Franck and Ravel in a much-anticipated recital.
A thread related the music on this system. All of the works had been written by well-known composers for particular star violinists, none of whom, at the least of their surviving recordings, ever performed any of this music with an aggressive method fairly as forceful as Vengerov’s. His Stradivarius instrument out-shouted Osetinskaya’s most vigorous taking part in.
Thrilling? You wager. Refined and refined? Not usually.
That mode labored finest in Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No.2, a bit that welcomes a grittier method. The work began as a sonata for flute and piano, written across the identical time because the ballet Cinderella and the opera Conflict and Peace. However when violinist David Oistrakh heard the primary efficiency on flute, he prompt to Prokofiev that he adapt it for violin. Prokofiev wrote in his autobiography how the revision, which premiered in 1944, got here out ‘extra aggressive and biting’ than the flute model.
That notion matched Vengerov’s temper, and he took it just a few steps towards the harsher finish of the stylistic vary, emphasizing each sarcastic concord. Even the Andante, meant to be paying homage to Mozart, got here up brief in lyric subtlety. The more and more tart harmonies within the crisp Scherzo and daring Allegro finale gave Vengerov an opportunity to extract most zing.
The opening piece – Prokofiev’s 5 Melodies – first appeared as a collection of brief wordless songs for soprano and piano, reworked in 1925 right into a violin model for virtuoso Pawel Kochanski. (One of many authentic melodies later popped up within the composer’s Six Items for Piano as ‘Berceuse Hébraique’.). Vengerov performed them merely, although louder and extra expansive than their lyric type may recommend.
All through the primary half, Osetinskaya executed her half with precision and a crisp however deft contact. Increased calls for on a pianist’s method within the Franck Sonata in A significant for Violin and Piano, which opened the second half, revealed a capability to wrestle essentially the most tough passages into one thing glossy and completely outlined. She was along with Vengerov all night in rubato and dynamics and took the highlight with élan when wanted.
The sonata, which Franck introduced as a marriage reward to Belgian violin large Eugène Ysaÿe and his spouse, begins with an open-armed, rolling theme in dialogue with the piano. Vengerov performed it extra like a giant assertion than a suggestive prelude. The craving of the expressive gestures within the Recitativo-Fantasia that introduces the finale was extra of an oration than wistful musing. Whereas each artists rose to the technical challenges in Franck’s writing, Vengerov’s unrelenting depth made it not fairly as thrilling because it may need been.
Ravel wrote Tzigane, for Jelly d’Arányi, a violinist in her Twenties prime when he composed this showpiece to deal with her explicit expertise. The power to make the low G string sing into larger melodic reaches and so as to add left-hand pizzicato to bravura passages, a rapid-fire articulation and pinpoint excessive harmonics had been all current. Vengerov’s strategies made these all occur, even when with a heavy hand.
The opening cadenza on the G string pushed dynamics towards an unwelcome harshness, the dance-based lilt of the primary melodic statements landed ponderously, and the pizzicato interpolations clanged. It was wild and unworldly, in its means, however what I missed was finesse. It obtained a standing ovation, after all, so perhaps I simply didn’t hear it.
Of the three encores, Jascha Heifetz’s association of the March from The Love for Three Oranges made the perfect use of Vengerov’s sharp-edged taking part in. The tart tune leaped from the violin, and the piano underlined the rhythms deftly. Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesfreud, a tangy waltz, drove its rhythms ahead at a fast tempo, hardly taking a breath within the lyrical segments.
Vengerov lastly discovered some welcome lyricism in Kreisler’s association of Variation 18 from Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, and completed with a stunning diminuendo. That efficiency dropped at thoughts the class of his 2022 program at this venue. If solely these belongings had discovered their means into extra of this program.
Harvey Steiman
