Search - Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, William Boughton :: Barber: Violin Concerto; Bernstein: Serenade

Best Barber Violin Concerto Rendition

John | Connecticut | 03/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have several renditions of this work and most of the violinists are much better known than Hu Kun, however, I feel, he has the best interpretation, with subtle timing differences and expression that conveys what I suspect the composer intended. The performance is art rather than academic and commercial. Highly recommended."

A lovely, beautifully shaped Barber concerto

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/14/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"People who know tell us that the Chinese classical music scene is exploding (one factory is turning out hundreds of grand painos a week), and we can expect a flood of great musicians to begin to pour forth. Hu Kun was unknown to me -- apparently the violinist has also recorded for EMI -- but this Barber Concerto is sensitive, personal, and beautifully played. Kun is 45, a former child prodigy born to a musical family in Sichuan. He had the misfortune, one gathrs, to be caught in the Cultrual Revolution. I don't know to what extent that hampered his career, but he has undoubted style. As evidened here, he also has a small, elegant tone rather than a powerful one.



William Boughton conducts an augmented English String Orchestra with great sympathy and tendeness. This reading is at odds with the large scale of Gil Shaham's famous account on DG, but it's also a lot more personal than recordings by big-name violinists like Perlman and Salerno-Sonnenberg. My only wish was that Kun could have been placed closer to the microphone -- his elegance is somewhat overwhelmed by the orchestra throughout. Numbus's recorded perspective is too distant in general.



Bernstein's Serenade, depicting characters from Plato's Symposium, neer struck me as particularly apt to its literary setting, but it has gained popularity among violinists. Kun is as good as the best in his expressivity and intensity, albeit not foremost for technique. In all, this repretoire is surprising for a Chinese soloist, but the CD was eminently enjoyable from strt to finish."