Nielsen - Violin Concerto [Lin/Salonen-Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra]The two great Scandinavian Violin Concertos, and it's the Sibelius that has come to be the more well known, played, and recorded, while the Nielsen has been in its shadow, and for me too, the Sibelius rightly soars above the Nielsen, i play the Sibelius regularly, the Nielsen rarely, but... on this listen i found myself marvelling at the sheer invention of Nielsen, yes it's a harder Concerto to get into, less memorable certainly, but it's a gem, and this is a wonderful logical coupling, and on nearly two years of writing my Blog, this is the first time Nielsen gets a mention!.
Cho-Liang Lin is Taiwanese, being born in 1960, he recorded these Concertos in 2001 i think, the front cover [photo by Carol Friedman] is an excellent double portrait, nicely done, lovely and sharp, and the writing is well placed.
It was the first movement that impressed me the most, it lasts longer than the two other movements put together, i can see it's cohesion now, strangely it starts off with a virtuoso cadenza, which lasts almost one and a half minutes, and when this Praeludium ends, there's this moment of pure magic, the violin turns sweet [1:28+], beautifully sugary in the high treble, the orchestra make a ravishing gentle tune at the same time, and then the violin takes my breath away with the most gorgeous notes of the whole Concerto [1:35-1:41], it's a moment to die for!, and as the violin soars high in the treble, so does my soul, the phrase never comes back, and is a moment that i so look forward to every time, about the third of the way through the movement, the whole thing turns robust [6:14+], with loud stamping rhythms from the orchestra, which the violin joins in, and the violin has some very robust and virtuosic playing, i like the way that the orchestra really comes alive in strong yet majestic forte outbursts [8:37+], and ups the power even stronger a little later [8:52+], two thirds of the way comes a long cadenza proper, and Lin shows off his prowess here, altogether a showpiece Concerto, it was good to familiarize myself with it more.
Here's Chen Yi playing the first movement on YouTube.
