Barber: Violin Concerto - Korngold: Violin Concerto

Proceeding with my collection of (American) violin concertos. This incidentally is a disc from my father's collection. The Barber concerto is not one of my favourite pieces. As almost everything I know from this composer it sounds almost too groomed and studied. Everything is so well proportioned, fits so nicely in the traditional forms, complies so diligently with the demands of good taste that despite its impassionate gesturing an impression of sterility is hard to avoid. Furthermore, in contrast with the Schuman, Rochberg and Adams pieces - which are thinkers' concertos, or symphonies with a solo voice - this is a concerto in the traditional mould. I've never been particularly interested in these vehicles for showing off lyricism and virtuosity. In addition to the version with Gil Shaham and the LSO conducted by André Previn I also listened to a performance with Elmar Oliveira as a soloist and the Saint Louis SO led by Leonard Slatkin. I thought both had something going for them.

On the DGG disc, the Barber is coupled with the Korngold Violin Concerto. This was new to me. In fact, I don't think I have listened to anything by Erich Wolfgang Korngold before, undoubtedly dissuaded by his reputation as a Hollywood composer. Korngold wrote the work in 1945, when he was moving away from the white screen and turned to the concert hall again. By then his rich, late-romantic style had been superseded by the sinewy neoclassicism of Bartok and Stravinsky. Nevertheless, I find this marginally more interesting than the Barber concerto. There is a certain harmonic and textural adventurousness that I'm missing from the latter piece. It's more carefree, and tinged with a tongue-in-cheek kind of humour it seems to me. Maybe the fact that Korngold put it together by cannibalising his earlier film scores lends it an air of refreshing dilettantism. In any case, from this piece it is very obvious how influential Korngold's legacy has been for contemporary film composers. It seems people like Horner, Zimmer and Williams haver never ventured beyond the perimeter set out by their predecessor. The concerto is likely to strike contemporary ears as pretty familiar. Again, the performance by Shaham and the LSO/Previn combo sounded pretty convincing. I have an LP somewhere with Heifetz (who premiered the work). I'll dig it up soon.