Concertos from the Caucasus
Volume 1: Three Violin Concertos
Aleksi Machavariani (1913-1995)
Violin Concerto in D minor (1949)
Azǝr Rzayev (1930-2015)
Violin Concerto No.1 in A minor (1953)
Rauf Gadjiev (1922-1995)
Violin Concerto in D minor (1952)
Karen Bentley Pollick (violin), Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra/John McLaughlin Williams
rec. 2024, Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall, Vilnius, Lithuania
Toccata Next TOCN0038 [84]

Georgia, the birthplace of Aleksi Machavariani, and Azerbaijan, where Rauf Gadjiev and Azǝr Rzayev were born, are the geographical centres of this Caucasus-oriented disc from Toccata. Their three violin concertos were composed within a few years of each other and offer a raft of folklorically-influenced music in attractively conventional three-movement forms. Those who have made a study of music from this period may have come across previous recordings, but the CD brings them together very attractively.

Machavariani’s Concerto dates from 1949 and was premiered by Mikhail Vaiman, who recorded it in Moscow for Melodiya in 1953. Another recording soon arrived from Marina Yashvili and many years later in the late 70s Liana Isadkadze recorded it, so it has not been without its adherents. One can hear why. The soloist is pitched straight in and against the deftest of orchestration – light and refined – the solo violin negotiates a thread of expressive, terpsichorean figures, deeply lyric and romantic and full of folklore. Machavariani knows better than to lay these out like a slab, ensuring, on the contrary, that themes dovetail and stitch together. The beautiful slow movement sounds like a Georgian cousin of a Georges Delerue film score – limpid, intensely lovely, its increasingly convoluted music taking in tartness and agitation before returning to the opening’s limpidity. Though it’s not as distinctive as the first two movements the finale makes up for it with verve alone, full of technical demands and attractive, crisp optimism.

Baku-born Rzayev’s Concerto dates from 1953 – Toccata’s track listing claims 1957 though the booklet notes tell us that the composer himself premièred it as a dissertation defence in 1953 and the work was officially premiered the following year. Like Machavariani’s, Rzayev’s Concerto wastes no time on a florid orchestral introduction, preferring to get on with the solo line. The violinist duly enters with an amazingly insouciant, singable theme against gossamer contributions from the orchestra. In fact, the solo violin seems to embody a kind of chant-like, ‘speaking’ role. It’s a feature of these two concertos that they’re frequently scored as if for a cello concerto, both composers giving plenty of room for the soloist and never labouring scores with heavy brass or horn writing. The soloist’s poignancy in the slow movement is therefore a function of this discretion, a sorrowful musing. The finale is rather reminiscent of Prokofiev with a lot of tangy incident and ear-catching detailing – exciting and vibrant. This concerto had the great good fortune to have been recorded by that superb violinist, Boris Goldstein, in the mid-60s.

The last concerto in the disc is Rauf Gadjiev’s, composed the year before Rzayev’s in 1952.  It enshrines Azerbaijani folk material and again pitches the soloist in without any delay. There are fine horn counter-themes and a cadenza of taut bravura. The slow movement is songful but rather mournful though some powerful percussion buttresses the orchestration, out of which yielding lyric writing emerges. After which, the finale offers a swirling drama of driving dance and vitality.

These mid-century concertos are less grandiloquent than the more obviously showy Khachaturian concerto, but they should appeal to those who admire the Khachaturian-Prokofiev axis with – here – a strong dose of ethnic colour and rhythms. They will certainly appreciate Karen Bentley Pollick’s fine performances with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under John McLaughlin Williams.

Jonathan Woolf 

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