Brahms & Bartók: Violin Concertos

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The Bartok is a revelation.Somehow Jansen manages to coax this music out of its accustomed reticence, but without any sense of forcing it…at last, this concerto really does sing of unrequited... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2016, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 8th Jan 2016
Catalogue No: 4788412
Label: Decca
Length: 59 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

8th January 2016
Gramophone Magazine

January 2016

Editor's Choice
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2016
Gramophone Awards

2016

Shortlisted - Concerto

Brahms: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77

Work length38:40

$3.30

$4.50

$6.15

Janine Jansen (violin)
Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Antonio Pappano
Recorded: 2015-02-24
Recording Venue: Santa Cecilia Hall, Rome

1. Allegro non troppo

Track length22:12

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

2. Adagio

Track length8:27

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

3. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco più presto

Track length8:01

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

Bartók: Violin Concerto No. 1 (Op. posth), Sz36

Work length20:25

$2.20

$3.00

$4.10

Janine Jansen (violin)
London Symphony Orchestra
Antonio Pappano
Recorded: 2014-08-26
Recording Venue: Walthamstow Assembly Hall, London

1. Andante sostenuto

Track length8:39

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

2. Allegro giocoso

Track length11:46

$1.10

$1.50

$2.05

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Recording of the Week, Kopatchinskaja and Jansen perform violin concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Bartók

8th January 2016

David enjoys two new discs of violin concerto repertoire, from Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Janine Jansen.

“As far as I know, the Brahms Concerto and Bartók’s First have never been coupled together before on disc,” enthuses Janine Jansen during recording sessions for this album, “but to me they seem a natural pairing. They may speak a different kind of musical language, yet they not only share a Hungarian connection, but also a profound combination of symphonic power and chamber-scale intimacy.”

Brahms’s (and Liszt’s) Hungarian inspiration stemmed directly from nineteenth-century gypsy bands, whose racy, seductive dance music cast an intoxicating spell over the sensation-hungry audiences of the time. Béla Bartók took a more radical view, and having declared passionately during his student years “All my life … I shall have one objective: the good of Hungary and the Hungarian nation”, joined his friend Zoltán Kodály collecting native Hungarian and Transylvanian folksongs in the field, noting them down on manuscript and recording them on a primitive gramophone as they went along. As time went by, the natural melodic contours and quirky rhythmic inflections of indigenous Hungarian folk music became an indissoluble part of Bartók’s own unique creative style.

Reviews

March 2016

The Bartok is a revelation.Somehow Jansen manages to coax this music out of its accustomed reticence, but without any sense of forcing it…at last, this concerto really does sing of unrequited love, well aided by the warm and beautifully balanced recording.

January 2016

Jansen gives us a lyric reading [of the Brahms] of rare inwardness and beauty...it is a performance that marries meditation with motion, such is the suppleness of Jansen’s and Pappano’s feel for the concerto’s larger symphonic movement and the hand-in-glove relationship that exists between soloist, conductor and Pappano’s superbly responsive Santa Cecilia orchestra.

8th January 2016

Jansen never resorts to flashy display for its own sake; and even in the midst of the [Bartók's] Allegro giocoso she finds space for some beautiful cantabile playing. I was particularly struck by some of her legato double-stopping – making this sound smooth is no mean feat, but in Jansen’s hands it sounds as natural as if it were a duet.

7th January 2016

[The Santa Cecilia Orchestra's] sound is rich and weighty, the better to support Jansen’s interpretation, itself heavyweight yet characteristically mercurial. Jansen’s playing glows, and the second theme of the first movement really sings; here and throughout, there is the feeling that Jansen wants every phrase to say something.

24th November 2015

The interpretation of the Brahms represents a true meeting of minds: Jansen possesses all the intellectual authority and expressive weight that the first movement requires, yet this is tempered by the wonderful spectrum of tone and the fluidity of pulse she can summon in the slow movement...Altogether a highly desirable disc.

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Brahms & Bartók: Violin Concertos

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Recording of the Week, Kopatchinskaja and Jansen perform violin concertos by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Bartók

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