Octo_Russ

Sibelius - Violin Concerto [Repin/ Krivine-London Symphony Orchestra] 

Another Sibelius Violin Concerto, i think this is the fourteenth of my Blog, but it's one of my favourite Violin Concerto's, but my love of this work can easily take regular listening, and i love the way each Soloist / Conductor can take a different path, and oftentimes there's a new insight to be had, and this is a good coupling, another nice little disc in my collection.

Vadim Repin is Russian he's now 41, he made this recording in 1994 when he was 23, the front cover photo [by Thomas Muller] is a nice portrait of Repin, with a nice dark background that accentuates the violin and face, nice neat and well placed lettering.

It was the wonderful first movement that i found compelling, nicely paced at the beginning, the undulating strings ghost in as if out of the mist, and Repin is quiet and restrained, mysterious and icy at first, a great start, the thing about Sibelius's concerto is that it can see very 'bitty', like loads of small bits taped together, and i think that Krivine sits back and becomes the 'accompanist', and maybe the performance could really do with pushing Repin hard, make him work / sweat for his pay, it towards the end that some nice things happen, after a huge forte, the oboe has a tremendously aching tune [12:10-12:28], what a lovely sense of nostalgia that gives!, and right at the end there's bowing fireworks coming from Repin [14:17-15:34].

Here's Vadim Repin playing the first movement on YouTube, Valery Gergiev conducting.