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After a series of critically acclaimed recordings on ONYX, most recently of the Mendelssohn (ONYX4060) and the Tchaikovsky concertos (ONYX4076), James Ehnes teams up with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and its charismatic music director, Kirill Karabits, in Violin Concertos by Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich. The Britten an early work, was completed in the September of 1939, just as World War II broke out. Britten had already composed ‘Our Hunting Fathers’ in 1935 (words by W.H Auden), and this work’s ferocious condemnation of political extremism and man’s inhumanity can to some extent be detected in the concerto. The barbarity of the Spanish Civil War (the concerto was written for the young Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa), the rise of Hitler’s Nazis and the persecution of the Jews appalled Britten. Peace and reconciliation was his credo, as exemplified in the later ‘War Requiem’. In the scherzo tuba and piccolos present the listener with an image of the horrifying abyss mankind was lurching towards. The first of Shostakovich’s two violin concertos was composed in 1948 for David Oistrakh. It had to wait until 1955 for its premiere due to the ban on ‘serious’ music by the notorious Zhdanov Conference and Party Decree of 1948. Only ‘patriotic’ music was allowed. With Stalin’s death in 1953 Shostakovich was finally able to exert his artistic freedom. It is a truly symphonic work in scale, grand, dramatic and cast in four movements with a huge cadenza placed before the finale. Only in the finale does the sun burst out in a brilliant helter-skelter coda. Reviews BBC Music MagazineJuly 2013 “Karabits and Ehnes share a powerful idea of [the Britten’s] narrative, and each scene is vividly realised…Karabits draws searing clarity, balance and detail from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra…his treatment of the Shostakovich Concerto is riveting – 4 out of 5 stars Gramophone MagazineAugust 2013 “Ehnes is a very fine violinist and there is barely a moment here when his playing is anything but silken in tone and sinuously refined…Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra make cultured colleagues but there is not much danger in their ostinato rhythms or edge to their attack. International Record ReviewSeptember 2013 “Ehnes is brilliantly supported by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with Kirill Karabits totally at one with the soloist. This superb performance is coupled with one of the finest modern performances of Shostakovich’s glorious A minor Concerto that I have ever heard. The Independent10th May 2013 “it’s the way that James Ehnes closes the opening movement [of the Britten] that most impresses, essaying a gossamer thread of such subtlety it becomes almost transparent. – 3 out of 5 stars The Telegraph14th June 2013 “The partnership between Ehnes, Karabits and the BSO comes across as a true meeting of minds, and these outstanding performances cannot be recommended highly enough. The Arts Desk22nd June 2013 “Everything hits the mark here…The Britten has never opened with such cool poise…the stuff of record critics’ dreams…Possibly the greatest recording that this concerto has received…Ehnes’s Shostakovich is just as good…Essential listening. |
