A real favourite of mine, along with the Sibelius and Bruch Concertos, for Lalo to dispense with a three movement Violin Concerto, and instead give us a five movement 'suite', all but in name it's a Violin Concerto, each and every movement is a delight, no duds here, and it certainly has a Spanish 'gypsy' element to it, plus it never outstays its welcome, being only 33 minutes long, there seems to be something for everyone in the five movements, each very different from the other, i played this same work / disc in the fairly early days of my Blog [9th April 2010].
Itzhak Perlman is now 67, born in Israel, but live in America, he recorded this work in 1966 when he was 21, now i must admit that the front cover is a peach, Perlman with a bright deep pink shirt, really stands out, the lettering is in a box to the right, but is opaque, and the background can be seen through it, i like the pose and the strong colours, a lovely front booklet [photo by Bette Marshall].
Wow what a thrill this was, both the first and third movements were real stunners, Perlman / Previn put some real fireworks in there, the recording is bright, maybe slightly brittle, not quite enough warmth [it is 1966 mind you], it's all nicely driven, with strong emphasis on fortes when needed, it was the third movement which i found to be the stronger, i must admit i soon got used to the age of the recording, the woodwind are nicely caught, easily being delineated in the orchestral melee, the orchestra start with an almost angry stamping theme, interspersed with the woodwind / high strings giving a soft reply [0:00-0:55], the violin comes in with a Gypsy melody, with the soft percussion / string pizzicato almost mimicking a strumming guitar [0:56+], i like the way the violin takes the tune up a notch [1:11+], and then comes out of staccato mode and plays more legato [1:26+], and then surely Perlman really does the Gypsy stuff, playing all sorts of whoops and fiddling [2:21-2:53], all the while the background keeps up the guitar rhythm, there's virtuoso aplenty [3:15+], all the while there's stamping rhythms that abound, the opening gambit of the violin returns [4:03+], and that's a lovely moment to hear the same tunes all over again, there's a sort of wistfulness in the cor anglais coda [5:31-5:49], and right at the end Perlman has quiet pizzicato notes, with the orchestra having the last word in the very last forte note [5:50-5:58], a superb movement of music.
Here's Silvia Markovici playing the third movement Intermezzo on YouTube.
Here's Silvia Markovici playing the third movement Intermezzo on YouTube.
