Miklos Rózsa (1907-1995)
Violin Concerto (1953)
Béla Bartók (1881-1945)
Violin Concerto No. 2 (1938)
Roman Simovic (violin)
London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle, Kevin John Edusei
rec. 2022, Jerwood Hall, LSO St Luke’s, London, UK
Reviewed as a download
LSO Live LSO0886 SACD [73]
This disc is a dream pairing of two violin concertos by great Hungarian composers; one, Bartók, acknowledged as such, the other, Rózsa, for long suspect as he wrote so much film music. Well, listen to this disc and tell which is which. It is music of the highest order from both. The soloist in both is the leader of the LSO Roman Simovic, though on this hearing he should be hailed as one of the world’s great virtuosos not leading an orchestra. Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Rózsa and with playing like this it is easy to see why he and the LSO were considered a dream team. The German Kevin John Edusei conducts the Bartók with equally impressive results.
Rózsa, although born in Budapest where he was introduced to both classical and folk music by his mother, chose to study not in his hometown but in Leipzig. The superb technical training he received there stood him in good stead for writing quickly in many styles that he would need for his film scoring career which covered everything form Biblical epics to film noir. But in his concert works the folk music of his childhood was frequently an inspiration. So it is in this concerto where all three movements are thoroughly Hungarian in sound.
I first became aware of the Rózsa concerto through Billy Wilder’s 1970 film The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, as Rózsa used the concerto as the basis for his score for the film. Holmes was of course famously attached to his violin though I doubt he would have been able to play this concerto. Written for Jascha Heifetz, it is notorious for its technical difficulties though in Simovic’s hands they seem child’s play.
This is utterly unlike any other recording of the concerto I know; sadly, I have never heard it live. It is wonderfully expansive; the first movement is three minutes slower than Heifetz’s famous recording and it sounds magnificent. Even then it is still a little faster than Rózsa’s metronome mark, but it works. The opening with sustained strings and rustling low clarinet ushers in the soloist with a folk inspired melody which here is allowed to breath. Breath is important to this movement as there are multiple subtle tempo changes which Simovic and Rattle manage impeccably, imbuing it with an almost improvisatory feel which is entirely appropriate. The double, triple and quadruple stops which are a feature of the violin part are perfectly judged. The cadenza is so impeccably voiced that it sounds like two instruments playing not just one,
If the first movement is extraordinary the slow movement is even better. The performers are spot on terms of speed and then there is their superb attention to every dynamic marking in the score. Whatever rapport they developed when Sir Simon was music director of the LSO has paid dividends here. There is an extraordinary moment at approximately eight minutes in (number 88 in the score) where this soloist bends the chords almost through quarter tones and the folk influences are made apparent and is quite spine tingling.
The finale begins with the orchestra seeming to lead us into a tragic drama, but the violin comes in with a skittish, lively dance. Throughout it never allows the orchestra to get too serious or melancholy and the whole movement has a dynamic playful energy which leads to a whirlwind of a coda. Simovic’s super high A, four octaves above middle C is not only perfectly pitched but thrillingly suspended before the final flourish.
The last ten years have seen a complete rehabilitation of the Korngold concerto, and I can only hope that with this extraordinary recording that soloists and programmers, will also begin to put this gem into concert programmes.
I have always wanted to like the Bartók more but most performances to me seem too astringent. In the score the direction ruvido (coarse) appears quite often and too many soloists take it too literally and make an unpleasant sound. Not so here where Simovic’s approach to that direction is certainly rustic and folk like but still has a beautiful tone. The magical opening with strumming harp provides the perfect support for the opening melody. As in the Rózsa this is folk inspired and once again the soloist is in his element, shaping its sinuous twists as to the manner born. Where too many soloists enter with the melody fortissimo he enters with a perfect forte to the harp’s piano and it is all the more effective because of this adherence to the score. His tuning in the double stops is impeccable. The quarter tones requested by Bartók leading into the cadenza have never sounded so ‘other’. There is some wonderfully athletic playing from the orchestra who respond well to Edusei and some deftly manged exchanges between soloist and group. The violin chords and the snap pizzicato in the final few bars are heart stopping.
The theme and variations second movement allows players in the orchestra to engage in exposed duets with the violin which are all atmospherically captured by the engineers. The harp and celeste sound magical. This movement can often seem fragmented, but Edusei shapes it effectively.
The Bartók must have been an inspiration for the Rózsa as there are too many similarities in material for it to be mere coincidence. So it is that the finale here begins with a strident full orchestra before the soloist enters with a dance like folk melody. And once again the soloist leads the way throughout dictating every rapid change of direction, of which there are many. The coda originally excluded the soloist and asked the trombones and trumpets to play some rather outlandish lip glissandi. Happily Bartók was persuaded by the first soloist Zoltán Székely to provide a more conventional ending with the soloist to the fore and this is what we get here enabling Simovic to lead us fearlessly to the brilliant conclusion.
This is a truly outstanding recording in every respect. It certainly sets the gold standard for the Rózsa. For me the real discovery is Roman Simovic, and I will be on tenterhooks until his next solo recording venture.
Paul RW Jackson
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