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Bruch & Paganini Violin Concertos -- Live Broadcast Performance in Germany
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"Rosand keeps us spellbound through the sheer richness and variety of his
response to the music, intense drama alternating with beatifully soft, sweet,
umpressurised playing of the second subject. His strong presence and feeling of
involvement carry the recitative-style middle movement, and there's a
devil-may-care brilliance in the virtuoso passages...."
Duncan Druce, Gramophone Magazine
"Listening to Aaron Rosand, you are
not conscious of hearing notes on a violin, but of hearing things
happen -- quite wonderful things taking place in a wide, bright
space. What distinguishes Rosand's playing is not what comes from
it--powerful elegance, all-of-a-piece integrity--but what comes
through it: music at its purest, music distilled."
Dan Tucker, Chicago Tribune Music Reviewer, November 2001
Performer: Rosand, Aaron
Composer: Max Bruch, Nicolo Paganini
Aaron Rosand is now in his seventies but his marathon recording career continues in full flow. Since he began to record for Vox in the 1950s, he's given us, in addition to much of the standard violin repertory, a large number of neglected works; his fine technique and passionate sense of commitment have brought back to life many works like the concertos of Ernst and Joachim that few modern violinists have dared to perform. And, indeed, it's the relatively unfamiliar Second Concerto of Bruch that's the most revelatory performance on these discs.
"Throughout the long, slow opening movement, Rosand keeps us spellbound through the sheer richness and variety of his response to the music, intense drama alternating with beatifully soft, sweet, umpressurised playing of the second subject. His strong presence and feeling of involvement carry the recitative-style middle movement, and there's a devil-may-care brilliance in the virtuoso passages...
"Rosand's account of the Paganini also has many fine aspects.
He plays the lyrical melodies with exceptional sensitivity, and in the second movement understands how he can enhance the sense of pathos by playing simply and quietly. He has, too, all the panache needed to bring off Paganini's high-wire virtuosity...
"There are some textural changes on the recent Bruch disc too. Rosand changes the composer's phrasing at several places in the First Concerto, and even recomposes two bars in the finale. In the last movement of the Scottish Fantasy, admittedly a rather repetitive piece, there are more cuts. But Rosand at 73 plays with the same fine tone, the same enthusiasm, panache and technical control as ever.
...the Concerto's Adagio, the Romance, and the penultimate movement of the Fantasy – show Rosand's characteristic spontaneity and warmth of expression undiminished. The dramatic, rhetorical style of the Concerto's Vorspiel is perfectly caught, too. The orchestral sound is attractively full and rounded...
"The reissue is well worth hearing for the splendid Bruch Second Concerto, the recent Bruch performances, though not perhaps top recommendations for these works, show a great performer still able to weave his spell."
--Duncan Druce, Gramophone Magazine
"Until now, the recent parade of new Bruch violin
concerto recordings has overlooked the somber and dramatic No. 2. This
concerto's unusual ordering of movements and its darkly pensive melodic
material (replete with aggressive, Lisztian interjections on the trombones) in
many ways is Bruch's most compelling. Jascha Heifetz was known for his
brilliant championing of this concerto, but Aaron Rosand proves he's also a
master of Bruch's style, both in the symphonically integrated solo line of the
first movement (where he floats above the music's pervasive melancholy), and in
the scherzo and finale's more conventional virtuoso writing, which is made to
sound anything but conventional thanks to Rosand's imagination and musicianship.
"The percussive opening of Paganini's First Violin Concerto establishes the work's theatrical
atmosphere. Indeed, the concerto could be termed "operatic" for its coloratura
writing and many "recitative" passages. Rosand's approach brings to mind the
stunning technique of a seasoned bel canto singer as he thrills us with his violinistic
acrobatics in the sprawling first movement and (especially) in the finale, with
its hair-raising wide leaps that require dead-on intonation. Rosand hits all of
these squarely, and what's more, he's clearly having fun doing so. The
violinist achieves high-spirited musical rapport with both conductors, Richter
de Rangenier with the Bavarian Radio in the Bruch, and Pinchas Steinberg with
the Saarlandischer Radio in the Paganini. Both recordings are well balanced,
but there's greater presence in the Paganini production (taped 10 years after
the Bruch, in 1980)."
--Victor Carr Jr.
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