There is no shortage of recordings of
Berg's
Violin Concerto of 1935, probably the single most-often recorded piece of serialist music. However, this one, by violinist
James Ehnes with the
BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor
Andrew Davis, has several attractive and distinctive features. For one thing, there are
Davis' own orchestrations of two early
Berg pieces, the
Piano Sonata, Op. 1, and the
Passacaglia fragment of 1913. One may wonder about the wisdom of uprooting the
Piano Sonata from its instrumental context, but here, the two works pave the way, so to speak, for the main attraction, namely the
Violin Concerto.
Ehnes' interpretation of this classic 20th century work is lush, emphasizing the acknowledged influence of
Mahler on
Berg. Sample the highly expressive presentation of the tone row at the beginning of the work. This has a lot to be said for it, one argument being that when the work was first played in the 1930s by its dedicatee, it may well have sounded very much like this.
Ehnes is not known for this kind of playing, but he is known for intelligent readings that bring out a lot of detail, even if that means running counter to type, and that is what happens here. Even those with one or more readings of the concerto in their collections may well find this one distinctive and fresh. ~ James Manheim
