Saint-Saens - Violin Concerto 3 [Bell/ Dutoit-Orchestre Symphonique De Montreal] A really nice disc, i had a great experience with this coming back from Southend on the motorway a few years ago [2006], while playing this on the disc player, it was one of those moments where i truly fell in love with this Concerto, and i remember the first time i heard this work [Perlman], i was a Postman out on my rounds, and there's was this tremendous downpour, and i took refuge in a phone box, and played a cassette of this, and i must admit i didn't get it, it sounded bland to me, well this time i certainly enjoyed it.
Joshua Bell is American, born in 1967 and now 43, he made this recording early in his career in 1988 at just 21, the front cover shows a picture of Bell with his cornerless Chanot-Chardon Strad, a strange instrument, which he has sold and upgraded to a $4 million dollar Strad.
Surprisingly i enjoyed the opening movement the best, i am very endeared to the middle movement, it has an achingly beautiful main melody to it, so i was surprised how wonderful i found this first movement, Saint-Saens sends this movement all over the place, lots of variety, lots of ideas, and yet at the same time congeals it into a coherent whole, here's some of the highlights, i like the way it starts off with a low and ominous pulsating string backdrop [0:00-0:09], it gives a real flavour and mood, there's a nice section early on [1:21-2:15], where the violin soars sweetly [1:21+], and with the soloist on a tremolo, the strings play pizzicato [1:34+], the orchestra have dark foreboding fortes [1:48+], a nice passage full of interesting ideas, superbly welded together by Saint-Saens, the main melody appears from the violin [2:57-3:56], and it's certainly rapturous, and this same section returns with slight variation later on [5:40-7:12], about halfway through there's this lovely quicksilver violin part [4:27-4:47], where the violin sounds so impish [4:29], and the violin shoots up high into the treble [4:43+], right at the end the violin plays some nice gymnastics [8:03-8:31], with double notes [8:03+], and lightning speedy bowing [8:25+], really thrilling, i'm glad i focused in on this movement today.
Here's Silvia Marcovici playing the first movement on YouTube.
