Brahms - Violin Concerto [Repin/ Chailly-Gewandhaus Orchester]
And yet another disc that gets its maiden voyage here, i have ten discs in my collection of this Concerto, and none of them are a clear 'winner' / favourite, so it's good to have a new disc, and certainly the Repin / Chailly combination is a good one, at one time i would have called this my favourite Concerto, i'm really not sure now, certainly i play Bruch or Mendelssohn more, but the Brahms is full of great things.
Vadim Repin comes from Russia, he's 43, he recorded this disc in 2008, the front cover portrait is a great one [by Mat Hennek], a dark brown & white shot, really sharp, you can see the individual stubble on his chin!, i like the lettering, also the back cover is well laid out, Repin on a park bench with his violin.
The big long first movement is really impressive, here it stands at nearly 23 minutes long, and i can't help thinking that Brahms is using the Beethoven Concerto as his model, the timings are eerily similar, plus they're both in D major, Brahms Concerto starts fairly stodgily, but the solo oboe comes in [0:19+], a premonition for the second movement?, and the quickly the whole thing takes off with a real vibrancy [0:52+], the intro is fairly long [0:00-2:46], and yes i really can see the homage to Beethoven now, the almost up and down the scales practising, i do feel there's more 'tunes' in the Brahms, the orchestra at times play with such a might [9:08-9:34], but then afterwards can be so sweet [9:34-9:57], certainly Repin really does get inside the virtuosity of it all [11:37-12:37], and also the poetry / charm of the music [12:52-13:24], Repin gives the Heifetz cadenza in the first movement [17:29-20:58], yes it's different than the Joachim, takes some getting used to, but it's good to hear something fresh, after the cadenza Repin weaves some beautiful long lines, creating a gorgeous coda [20:58-22:17], before ending the whole thing with a flourish.
Here's Repin playing the Brahms Concerto on YouTube.
Vadim Repin comes from Russia, he's 43, he recorded this disc in 2008, the front cover portrait is a great one [by Mat Hennek], a dark brown & white shot, really sharp, you can see the individual stubble on his chin!, i like the lettering, also the back cover is well laid out, Repin on a park bench with his violin.
The big long first movement is really impressive, here it stands at nearly 23 minutes long, and i can't help thinking that Brahms is using the Beethoven Concerto as his model, the timings are eerily similar, plus they're both in D major, Brahms Concerto starts fairly stodgily, but the solo oboe comes in [0:19+], a premonition for the second movement?, and the quickly the whole thing takes off with a real vibrancy [0:52+], the intro is fairly long [0:00-2:46], and yes i really can see the homage to Beethoven now, the almost up and down the scales practising, i do feel there's more 'tunes' in the Brahms, the orchestra at times play with such a might [9:08-9:34], but then afterwards can be so sweet [9:34-9:57], certainly Repin really does get inside the virtuosity of it all [11:37-12:37], and also the poetry / charm of the music [12:52-13:24], Repin gives the Heifetz cadenza in the first movement [17:29-20:58], yes it's different than the Joachim, takes some getting used to, but it's good to hear something fresh, after the cadenza Repin weaves some beautiful long lines, creating a gorgeous coda [20:58-22:17], before ending the whole thing with a flourish.
Here's Repin playing the Brahms Concerto on YouTube.
