Britten: Violin Concerto op. 15 - Reveille (for violin and piano) - Suite op. 6 (for violin and piano) - Two Pieces (for violin, viola and piano)
Isabelle Faust (violin), Boris Faust (viola), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Runfunks conducted by Jakob Hrůša
Harmonia Mundi HMM 902668 • 64' •
Live recording: 28-29 October 2021, Isarphilharmonie, Munich (Violin Concerto)
Studio recording: Aug. 2022, Teldex Studio, Berlin
That alongside the (by now increasingly performed and recorded) Violin Concerto his chamber music is also featured on this album may well be called a welcome relief. There is even a 'world première recording' to report of the Two Pieces for violin, viola and piano. As for programming choices, the other two works—the Reveille, a 'concert study for violin with piano accompaniment'—and the Suite for violin and piano op. 6 are also spot on. The Suite even has a direct connection to the genesis of the Violin Concerto, for in 1936 in Barcelona during the music festival held there as part of the ISCM (International Society for Contemporary Music), Britten performed the Suite op. 6 dedicated to him together with the Catalan violinist Antonio Brosa (1894-1979), later consulting Brosa about technical playing problems he had encountered while working on his Violin Concerto. Britten later, however, discarded most of the suggestions offered by Brosa.
Britten had been introduced to Brosa earlier by his teacher Frank Bridge, which would develop into a warm friendship. The violinist had settled in London in 1914 and made his debut there in 1919 as a 25-year-old soloist, subsequently premiering many a new concerto. Thanks to his universally praised playing and his professional knowledge, several composers sought his advice, such as William Walton in the summer of 1938, who was then working on his Violin Concerto for Jascha Heifetz.
It was also Brosa who premiered Britten's Violin Concerto on his 1727 Vesuvius Stradivarius at Carnegie Hall in New York on 28 March 1940, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli. It was this performance that definitively put Brosa on the international map as a violinist.
The Violin Concerto dates from a young Britten: he was just 25 when he began it, but at an important life stage for him, exchanging England for the United States, where he would remain for two years before returning to his native country. However, in June 1939 he was still in Canada, in Saint-Jovite north of Montreal, where he completed the sketch for his Violin Concerto. In September, during a stay with friends on Long Island near New York, the orchestration was finished, the same month that Poland was occupied and World War II became a reality.
Although Britten's music in the 1930s often bore a stylistic parodistic stamp, this does not apply to the Violin Concerto. American composer Elliott Carter, who attended the premiere in New York, recalled that the piece had a 'pronounced autobiographical dimension'. That Britten had wanted to translate, as it were, the broadly felt political unrest and threat emanating from it into a 'serious instrumental drama', albeit in abstract allegorical terms. But one that developed strongly dramatically, as in the likewise three-part Sinfonia da Requiem (1940).
From an autobiographical perspective, however, there is another important development to note: that of his relationship with British tenor Peter Pears, which had gained much intimacy during this period, but had also become more public, coupled with his strong pacifist stance and a Europe at war (America would not enter the conflict until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941). And then there was the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) which claimed so many victims and directly affected his friend Brosa as a Catalan. If a direct connection can be drawn between that Civil War and Britten's rather introspective Violin Concerto, it would be in that phenomenal passacaglia that defines the final section. But perhaps also—albeit fleetingly—in the opening movement, where the march rhythm, indicated by soft timpani strokes and answered by a cymbal clash, according to Brosa (and as a Spaniard he would know best) is a motto of Spanish origin. The centrally positioned Scherzo, incidentally, is far from introverted: the Vivace is dominated rather by an almost violent, wild and frightening discourse as Britten explored in several other works, including the Ballad of Heroes from the same year, 1939 (the 'Dance of Death', as the Scherzo there is called).
Britten also dedicated the short Reveille to Brosa, as evidenced by the inscription in the manuscript. The Catalan performer also gave its premiere on 12 April 1937 at London's Wigmore Hall, together with pianist Franz Reizenstein. It breathes the typical style of Britten, of 'puns, puzzles and games', musically contagious jocularity. The tempo marking may raise eyebrows: 'Andante - rubato e pigro'. 'Pigro' stands for 'sluggish', 'slow', a reference to Brosa who, unlike Britten, did not like to get up early in the morning and set to work. The soft, mechanical ticking of the clock in the piano part mingles most suggestively with the slowly 'awakening' violin melody, after which a rhapsodic interplay gradually unfolds, culminating in a virtuosic finale.
In the Two pieces for violin, viola and piano from December 1929, completed by Britten shortly after his sixteenth birthday, abounds with harmonic innovations according to twentieth-century recipes, when Britten was strongly influenced by his teacher Frank Bridge. It is possible that he also became acquainted with the music of Aleksandr Skrjabin during that time (the many chord progressions suggest this at least), but besides those of Bridge, influences from the Second Viennese School are also discernible.
The German Isabelle Faust is the ideal soloist in this program. She combines a strictly clear, fresh but also glowing tone with temperament and an overwhelming virtuosity. This applies not only to her interpretation of the Violin Concerto, but in the other works as well there is a sublime performance. Nuanced tonal colors, sharp contrasts, alternating incisive and biting accents, tone production, agility, warm lyricism and alongside this the pointed-sharp rhythmic profile together provide a truly ideal performance that in the orchestral contribution under the equally fervent Jakob Hrůša finds a particularly beautifully stylized counterpart. Thanks also to the excellent recording, it has become a splendid live performance that truly resonates.
The other works also stand firm as a house, with beside Isabelle Faust her brother, the altoist Boris Faust, and the pianist with whom she has been collaborating for years: Alexander Melnikov. No doubt about it: this is a top album in every respect and moreover, for once not with an obvious coupling.