Octo_Russ

Sibelius - Violin Concerto [Yang/ Chistiakov-Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra]

Here's another new disc that i acquired recently, i believe i got it from some seller on Ebay from the Far East, and here's the thing, if i search for Classical Artists in the Far East [mainly Japan], a whole ton of them come up that aren't available in the West [i'm from England], sure we have Japanese and Korean Artists very popular in the West, but there's so many that are big in Asia, but unknown where i am, and why?, that's why Ebay is such a great venture, every now and again a really desirable disc becomes available from one of these sellers, i always search under 'violin' every now and again to see what it churns up.

So yet another Sibelius Violin Concerto, i just counted 15 versions of this work in my library, but there's always room for another, hehe, come to think of it i want to get the Vilde Frang disc, the booklet cover pic [by Jeng-Jin Ko], is really good, a very nice pose with the violin in hand.

Sung-Sic Yang is unknown to me, and i can't find anything on the internet about him, except that he is South Korean, this is what i mean about 'unknown to the West, but well known in Asia' syndrome!.

Again i was taken aback by the slow second movement, the recording is slightly boxy, and Yang's violin sounds deep and rich, almost halfway to sounding like a viola at times!, there's three parts i especially noticed this time, when the orchestra drones in with forte [3:03+], and the trumpets blast their fanfares three times [3:17, 3:35 & 3:43], a really lovely moment, and more towards the end, where the violin goes up into the treble stratosphere [4:51+], like a high wire trapeze artist climbing the ladder, and starts doing high trills / thrills [4:59+], and reaches a superb zenith [5:11], and after that Yang slowly floats downward and becomes lost in the orchestra, a short time later Yang does the same again, he starts climbing again [6:11+], and a superb zenith is reached again [6:37], these are really teasing, a good tremendous musical rush, Sibelius's Violin Concerto is a genius of a creation.

Here's Vadim Repin playing the second movement on YouTube, with Valery Gergiev conducting, live from the London Proms.