Gil French | 2 SEP 2021
I had never liked Beethoven’s Violin Concerto because it was always performed with ponderous, tedious, magisterial Klempereresque coddling. Then, during a trip to Paris in September 2012, at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, Thomas Zehetmair, violinist-conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of Paris, turned it into one of those “Oh! That’s what it’s all about!” experiences with upbeat tempos that gave a waltz-like airy lilt and kaleidoscopic timbres to Beethoven’s long lines.
BEETHOVEN & BRAHMS: Violin Concertos in D
Gil Shaham, violin; The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, conductor
Release: March 12, 2021
Label: Canary Classics CC20
Duration: 74:57
That’s what Gil Shaham’s performance of the Beethoven reminds me of. Violin flourishes announce his first movement entry—a flexible flow of soaring lyricism, enhanced by his bright perfect pitch and the warmth of his nuanced Stradivarius. He simply nails every pitch during the concerto’s 40 minutes. His phrasing of long stretches is wondrous as he tailors smaller phrases within longer ones, allowing the music to breathe. All this simply glows in what must be his own extensive, inventive cadenza, based integrally on Beethoven’s own themes and harmonic progressions.
When the orchestra is playing with Shaham, Eric Jacobsen is his hand-in-glove partner in dialogue, not merely an accompanist. Details are so clear that I found myself automatically listening to soloist and orchestra simultaneously rather than attending now to one, now to the other. Problems arise, however, when the orchestra alone has stage center. How could anyone open this concerto with four timpani strikes that sound this cheap and tinny—recorded at a distance, too, from the upfront woodwinds and strings. Jacobsen’s pulse in the orchestral introduction is mechanical, metronomic, void of nuance. Also, when the full orchestra plays without Shaham, tubby engineering smothers the bass line and inner details. Even worse, after Shaham finishes a passage, an impetuous Jacobsen usually speeds up the tempo.
In the second movement, all these orchestral problems disappear. Some may find the tempo here too fast, but the marking is not Largo but Larghetto (with added energy), here taken at a metronome marking of about 50, shy of one beat per second. The effect is that both soloist and orchestra float serenely. Nothing sounds stale. For once, I really listened to every detail. And Shaham adds another clever cadenza here, with a bit of timpani serving as a lead-in to the final movement, which bops along in a style consistent with the first two movements—in fact, it’s reminiscent of the country dance movement in Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony (No. 6). Plus a bonus: about four minutes in, Shaham adds yet another merry cadenza before the final one near the end—both gloriously expansive and inventive, while keeping the composer’s basic ideas.
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: “Magisterial,” my eye!
The intelligent liner notes make interesting comparisons between the Beethoven and Brahms, but the Brahms performance gets a solid thumbs-down. In the orchestral introduction, the tempo is faster than normal. The quavering violins under the oboes’ melody are inaudible. The Knights, a Brooklyn-based collective chamber orchestra (here with 6-6-4-4-3 strings), initially sounds too puny for Brahms. When Shaham enters, he sounds like a metronome on steroids, swift without feeling. When the lush second theme arrives after nearly four minutes, the tempo slows way down, becoming romantic-traditional, all touchy-feely (appropriately so). Return to the main theme and I ask, “What’s the rush?” Thus, the first movement’s basic problem: rush, relax, rush, relax, etc.—no consistent structure. I’d call it the purple-patch approach, except that the rushed sections really dominate.
The problem with the second movement (Adagio) is not the quicker-than-normal tempo but the matter-of-fact timbre of woodwinds that isn’t softened or tempered, and Shaham’s own tone that sounds efficient rather than caressing, despite its sweetness. In the final movement Shaham does some fabulous fiddling, enhanced by the brightness of his spot-on pitches, but he sounds too juiced up, overly earnest, pressing the tone constantly. The orchestra also is juiced up; they project melody and harmony, but inner details again are not illuminated. Is this caused by Jacobsen or the engineer or both? The final measures sound forced and loud.
One last item: thumbs down for cutting off the resonance at the end of both concertos! ■
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