Review By Carl Bauman,American Record Guide,July 2010
This Naxos recording is well played by excellent forces. In fact, each of the concertantes is a good three minutes shorter, which makes for a livelier performance. The young Norwegian soloists and orchestra are quite competent.
The Naxos has the lower price and the better performances.
To read the complete review, please visit American Record Guide online.
Review By Robert Maxham,Fanfare,July 2010
Olav Anton Thommessen’s notes to Naxos’s release of two concertants by Louis Spohr notes the composer’s predilection for compositions intended for double forces (the double quartet, the violin duos, and the Seventh Symphony for double orchestra), which Thommessen traces to Spohr’s experience of hearing antiphonal singing in St. Petersburg. The two concertants played by Henning Kraggerud and Øyvind Bjorå span a quarter of a century, while Spohr published the duet much earlier.
Those who admire both Spohr’s duets (often regarded as the best ever written for two violins) and his violin concertos should delight in these concertants; they combine the same sort of relationship between the solos and orchestra, the same melodic turns and penchant for ornamented melody from the concertos with the active, though here more homophonic than contrapuntal, partnership of the two violins from the duets. Aficionados of Spohr’s works will note that perhaps his most popular concerto (at least nowadays), the Eighth, op. 47, comes from the same general period as the First Concertant. That’s apparent in both the figuration and, to some extent, in the thematic material of the first movement. Kraggerud and Bjorå play Spohr’s intricate tracery exuberantly at a rapid tempo. They match so well that they present almost a single strand of sound to counter the orchestra’s forces. Both violinists play with tonal and technical command (Kraggerud on a 1744 Guarneri del Gesù), producing a warm sonority in the melodious slow movement. The Rondo presents the two soloists in dialogue that almost belies Thommessen’s attempt to set Spohr apart from some of his more self-aggrandizing contemporaries; there’s no lack of purely virtuoso excitement in either the first or last of the movements, even if Spohr’s type of virtuosity belonged to an era earlier than Paganini’s (Spohr, for example, disdained off-the-string staccato). Passages in the finale so similar that, but for the dates of their composition, they might have been lifted from the Duo Concertant, op. 67/2 (from 1824), argue for Spohr’s relative stability through his career (although some may point to signs of stylistic development in the concertos). Still, the Second Concertant begins in a mood of darker anticipation (Spohr has been described as addicted to minor keys, perhaps because of the slinkier chromatic possibilities they offer). As in the First Concertant, the soloists enter singing together before loosening their woven strands. Their cooperation as they swirl giddily together in the movement’s headlong passagework (and in the finale’s, as well) could serve as a model, though perhaps one difficult if not impossible to emulate, of perfect ensemble coordination. The slow movement begins with a passage for the two violins alone, reminiscent in its texture of the duos. Spohr, as mentioned, has often been described as the most successful writer of duos for two violins, perhaps because he buried
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Review By Jonathan Woolf,MusicWeb International,June 2010
Spohr’s two Concertanti were written some 25 years apart, and display his characteristic melodic grace, adept interplay, and a sometimes intriguing approach to orchestration. It all makes for fluent listening, especially given the fine performances enshrined in this disc.
The elegant two minute orchestral introduction to the A major Concertante sets the marker. Clever registral interplay demarcates Spohr’s schema, allowing contrast but also unison. Overall he imbues the music with a joie de vivre demonstrated by ebullient trills which lead dramatically into the orchestral tutti—maybe a stock gadget but when carried off with panache still an exciting one. Spohr manages too to imbue the wind writing with sufficient personality and the curlicues for this section add nicely to the orchestral sound-picture. With a rather pious slow movement—neat running orchestral pizzicato show the composer pulling out all the stops—there is also sweet charm. And with a bright, jovial finale, rich in gallant hues (and animating horns) this is a work well worth getting to know.
Its companion was written in 1833. The two violins enter much earlier than in the previous work, establishing their credentials with more romantic spirit. Kraggerud and Bjorå take care to give full weight to those moments when Spohr encourages a spongy lower string statement from the one and an answering crystalline upper string commentary from the other. Again the wind playing is pert—the orchestral forces here are adept. The notes speak of Spohr’s writing here being anticipatory of Berlioz, Tchaikovsky and Mahler. Well, the last named is surely far-fetched in this context, but there are some intriguing pre-echoes of Tchaikovsky certainly. The grazioso double-stops of the two soloists in the slow movement are set atop intriguingly reduced orchestral support. The finale has brio but is not aggressive; it’s an Allegretto after all, and has just a few hints that Spohr was more than slightly au fait with Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante.
Published in 1833 and one of his studies, the Violin Duet in G major maintains a good balance between expressive and technical demands, the multi-sectional nature of the second movement being especially successful in this regard…this sprucely performed Naxos entrant is notably well played and recorded.
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Review By Guy Sauvé,Passion Musique et Culture,May 2010
Dans sa biographie consacrée à Spohr (Eds. Papillon, coll. Mélophiles, Genève 2006), la musicologue Hélène Cao écrit: « La musique de Spohr reflète ce passage du classicisme au romantisme, tout en résistant aux classifications expéditives: si l’influence de Haydn et de Mozart restera longtemps perceptible, son langage s’émancipe rapidement de celui de ces deux modèles; en même temps, il ne correspond pas à l’idée « progressiste » qu’on se fait du romantisme. De là vient en partie l’oubli dans lequel Spohr est tombé car la postérité aime à ranger les artistes dans des cases soigneusement étiquetées et ne garde la mémoire de quelques figures emblématiques. »
Depuis l’année où ce livre a été publié, on peut dire que l’édition discographique a largement contribué à réhabiliter un des musiciens les plus actifs de la première moitié du dix-neuvième siècle. À ce jour, des quelque 300 œuvres que l’on a répertoriées, on a maintenant enregistré ses 18 concertos pour violon et orchestre, ses 10 symphonies, ses 4 concertos pour clarinette, ses 5 trios avec piano, ses 7 quintettes à cordes, ses 4 double quatuors à cordes, de la musique de chambre pour grand ensemble (septuor, octuor et nonette) et presque toutes ses ouvertures.
Bien qu’il reste encore bon nombre d’opus à enregistrer, notamment ceux qui comportent des combinaisons instrumentales plutôt originales pour l’époque, on peut supposer que plusieurs autres albums viendront sous peu ajouter leurs pierres à l’édifice d’une œuvre monumentale. Il était grand temps que l’ombre du grand Beethoven sur ses contemporains se dissipe peu à peu.
Devant un choix déjà assez vaste, les deux concertantes (ou concertos) pour deux violons offertes ici s’avèrent un bon choix pour le mélomane qui souhaite s’initier à ce compositeur qui exprimait sans gêne, notamment dans son autobiographie, sa déception envers la superficialité des amateurs et la complaisance de certains compositeurs. Bien sûr, pour l’apprécier à sa juste valeur, il faut accorder notre écoute dans la perspective du répertoire de la première moitié du XIXème siècle et non pas avec les Brahms, Liszt, Wagner et leur suite mais plutôt dans la lignée des Weber, Mendelssohn, Rossini, Paganini par exemple.
Des deux Concertantes, je préfère la deuxième. Dans les deux cas, Spohr fait preuve d’une verve mélodique indéniable, d’une originalité technique (&l
