Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich / Paavo Järvi TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 - Francesca da Rimini

 

SYMPHONY No. 5 - FRANCESCA DA RIMINI

 

Christian Tetzlaff / David Zinman / Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto - Violin Romances

Christian Tetzlaff is a brilliant violinist, one whose technique is equaled by his intelligence. He recorded a very respectable Beethoven Violin Concerto with Michael Gielen, last available on Point Classics in so-so sound. This newcomer is finer still, an interpretation with real personality and a point of view. It's a reading of high contrasts in which the music's antithesis between energetic outbursts (particularly in the first movement) and lyrical effusiveness comes to the fore. Zinman establishes this dichotomy right from the beginning: tempos are swift, accents are sharp, and when Tetzlaff enters, the polarity between solo and orchestra swiftly establishes itself.
In this context, Tetzlaff's use of Beethoven's own cadenza from the piano concerto version of the piece, recast for solo violin, proves an inspired choice, carrying the drama straight through to the end of the movement. The Larghetto finds Tetzlaff offering tenderness and real "Innigkeit" without a shred of excessive sentimentality; and as throughout the performance his exchanges with the orchestra's woodwind section are just lovely. Even in the rambunctious finale Tetzlaff displays remarkable variety in his phrasing of the main theme, at first a touch subdued, as if still shrugging off the previous movement's legato dreaminess, but then frisky and buoyant. It's a remarkably comprehensive conception of the piece, and the two Romances, the logical coupling, seldom have sounded more elegant.  (David Hurwitz)

Yuja Wang RAVEL

Ravel’s music is, quite simply, unique – and pianist Yuja Wang knows why. “In my opinion,” she says, “it has the exactness of a Swiss clock mechanism, but layered on top of that, it is about pleasure, pure and simple!” 

With their combination of jazz rhythms, sensual beauty and spiky vitality, Ravel’s two piano concertos illustrate her point to perfection, as will be heard on her new album – to be released in October. It also features the original piano solo version of Fauré’s Ballade in F sharp major op. 19. Wang recorded all three works in the spring of this year – in the concertos she was accompanied by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the ensemble with which she made her European debut in 2003, aged just 15, and with which she has just spent a season as Artist-in-Residence. On the podium for this new recording was stellar young French conductor Lionel Bringuier, who was unanimously awarded first prize and the Prix du Public at the 49th Besançon Young Conductors Competition in 2005, and went on to be named Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Tonhalle in 2012, at the age of 26. He has now set out to record all of Ravel’s orchestral music with the Tonhalle for Deutsche Grammophon.

Wang and Bringuier have worked together often since she played Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under his direction in Stockholm in 2008. After their Ravel project – Wang’s first venture into French repertoire on disc – they will be joining forces again in November this year to perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9, “Jeunehomme”, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in LA.

Ravel’s celebrated Piano Concerto in G major and the less familiar Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major are both heavily influenced by jazz – the composer had undertaken a four-month concert tour of North America in 1928, during which he took in the jazz clubs of both Harlem (in the company of George Gershwin) and New Orleans. He then worked on the two concertos concurrently, between 1929 and 1931, and originally planned to give the first performance of the G major work himself. In the event, however, it was Marguerite Long who gave the premiere, under the baton of Ravel, in part because the composer was focused on completing the Concerto for the Left Hand, commissioned by Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who had lost his right arm during World War I. The two works are very different in character, the D major Concerto often dark and brooding, the G major more playful, offering a Mozartian clarity and drawing on the translucent style of Saint-Saëns – as, incidentally, does Fauré’s Ballade. The latter is a work for which Yuja Wang has a particular affection because, in its orchestral version, it was the first work she ever played with an orchestra.

Ever since her sensational debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in March 2007, Yuja Wang has been building an extraordinary career, giving concerts with the world’s leading orchestras and regularly joining them on tours of the Americas, Asia and Europe. Since 2009 Deutsche Grammophon has released six recordings with her, most recently an album of concertos by Rachmaninov and Prokofiev (“Wang is a force of nature” – South Florida Classical Review.)

Yuja Wang will soon be appearing with the San Francisco Symphony in its home city before travelling with the orchestra to the Edinburgh Festival and the BBC Proms in London, as well as to festivals in Wiesbaden, Bucharest, Lucerne, Luxembourg, Amsterdam and Paris. In February she makes her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, performing Mozart’s “Jeunehomme” under Valery Gergiev in both Munich and Paris. Other highlights of the upcoming season include a tour of Asia with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Gustavo Gimeno (in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2), a solo recital at Carnegie Hall in May and, in June, another reunion with Bringuier, for performances of both Ravel concertos with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

With her singular musicality and stylish appearance on stage, Yuja Wang has been fêted not just in the music world but in the pages of international fashion magazines. She is a Steinway Artist and a brand ambassador for Rolex. A video of her playing The Flight of the Bumblebee on YouTube has been viewed almost four million times. As an internet sensation with an immense following, she will bring the vibrant music of Ravel to a whole new audience. (Deutsche Grammophon)

Julia Fischer BRUCH & DVORAK Violin Concertos

 Julia Fischer has chosen a rare and inspired coupling, the Bruch G minor and Dvořák A minor Violin Concertos. The “brilliant and musically insightful German violinist” (The New York Times) is joined by the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and David Zinman.

Reviewing Julia Fischer’s performance of the Dvořák Concerto in London, The Guardian wrote, “Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, a romantic showpiece too often passed over in favour of Bruch and Mendelssohn, has a piquant slow movement to compete with either. Fischer made sure we heard every note, handing us each bar with absolute technical assurance and in a lustrous, seamless tone.”

Fischer points out that the two concertos have much in common: “Formally they are very similar. Both first movements start with quasi-improvised phrases, and both go into the second movement without a break. The slow movements are structurally very similar – each is of heightened importance within the concerto.” The concertos were composed approximately a decade apart and both composers sought input from the great Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim.

Julia Fischer wished to record the concertos with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and David Zinman, with whom she has a special relationship. “One of my first concerts was with the Tonhalle Zürich and I first played with David Zinman in 2003. He is a very natural musician and very intelligent but in the end he simply makes music. That is a gift.” Fischer was artist-in-residence with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in 2009–2010. The distinctive sound of the orchestra, perfectly suited to the music of Bruch and Dvořák, is enhanced by the acoustic of their 1895 concert hall, where the concertos were recorded.