Search - Beethoven, Muti, Repin :: Beethoven Violin Concerto - Kreutzer Sonata

A One-Base Hit

TODD KAY | 11/04/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The highest compliment one can pay the Repin/Muti/VPO recording of the violin concerto is that everyone involved -- soloist, conductor/orchestra, and engineers -- is going for the same thing (emphasis on "thing," singular) and they all stick to the script, doggedly. If you want to hear a technically faultless Beethoven Violin Concerto, the sole interpretive characteristic of which is a kind of lofty Olympian reserve, this is for you. Of poetry, drama, whimsy, and any but the most basic and inevitable musical shaping, there is virtually nothing; one would only know from experience with other performances that those possibilities existed in the work. The Repin/Muti reading is "sweet" and "genial" and "graceful" from beginning to end, abundant lyricism adding up to little and pointing nowhere in particular. As implied above, the recorded sound is perfectly matched to the understated character of the performance: warm, generalized, and low-impact, even in the tuttis. This approach may be pleasing to some; my own reaction was disappointment, not only in the soloist but in the conductor, of whom I am a great admirer. This is not what I expected from him, and will do little to counter the oft-expressed opinion that Beethoven is one of his weak suits. Familiar though I am with the hallmarks of his style, I would never have accurately guessed he was involved, if listening to this blind. He conducts as though his whole career has been building to the perfect moment when he could turn into Carlo Maria Giulini.



The accompanying Kreutzer Sonata with Marta Argerich is on a different level: tense, occasionally dazzling, and the best reason to get this. Repin decided against coupling the Beethoven with another violin concerto, on the grounds that any other concerto in the repertory would be dwarfed by Beethoven's. I strongly disagree (and would cite as Exhibit A the RCA CD containing the classic Heifetz/Munch recordings of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn concerti), but in the face of this dashing Kreutzer, I am willing to allow Repin his eccentric view. This is not a "coupling" in the strictest sense, however; the works occupy separate very short CDs within one slim case. I suspect this layout was not the original plan, but some broad tempi pushed the combination a few minutes past the 80-minute mark. DG deserves credit for not trying to sell this as two full-priced discs."

Why Vadim, why?

villegem | canada | 12/01/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Vadim Repin is one of the most talented, imaginative violinist alive. His Mozart concerti conducted by Menuhin, his Shostakovich with Nagano were powerful, refined, intelligent recordings. So why is Vadim Repin so afraid of Beethoven's concerto? The respect he certainly displays in the promotional video is all too real and perhaps, his usually steely arm just couldn't serve him as his Durandal to slay Beethoven's dragon. Perhaps Vadim would have benefited from including the Schnittke cadenza: at least he would have had an ally to make history instead of selecting a sleep walker named Muti... Repin budding ideas -they never reach maturity- are tramped by Riccardo like a drunk elephant in a glass menagery. But hey, Vadim we are told, waited to find his ideal collaborators... yeah right!



Now to the real culprits of this wreck: Deutsche Grammophon. And specifically the sound engineer and producers. The recorded sound is thin and boomy, the soloist is far, far away somewhere down a hole and very little of his direct sound -already thin because of fear- comes to us. The orchestra sound is a soup even when listening on professional studio equipment: no delineation of the strings at all, it's a noise. Of course the cadenzas are recorded without anyone in the hall -the halo of reflection is warmer without musicians and becomes matter once the editing restore the orchestra presence about 15 seconds before they even play a note back again.

The booklet tells us that Mr Rainer Maillard is the sound engineer. We are also told that he had so much time on his hands that he indulged into photography and provided some stage shots for the booklet. Well Mr Maillard, instead of playing with your zoom, you should have opened your ears and concentrated on your job! A 2007 DG CD that sounds worse than earlier medium rich DG records is the result of your complacency! This so called "tonmeister" should become a tonschuler of real masters such as Kenneth Wilkinson, James Lock or closer to us Jean Chateauret before being offered the wheel of a studio console! A sound licence he should be required to pass! Deutsche Grammophon producers should really aim for more than elevator music sound quality and hire professionals not a stage photographer who dabbles in noise recording!



CBC Rick Phillips gave 3 stars to this disc. One is this listener verdict, only for poor complacent, terrified Vadim Repin, lost in this PR machine. I have yet to listen to the Kreutzer... I felt already "kreutzified" by the concerto and surely need a break before attempting a listening...



I know in an era of MP3 downloads we are supposed to forget about sound quality and just gobble up products because they are made and presented to us. But really if these producers had heard the Ansermet Deccas recordings of the early 60s, had possessed any professional self-esteem and integrity, they would never have released CDs like this one."

A tepid Beethoven concerto -- where's the fiery Russian we e

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/25/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Vadim Repin, now a veteran of the concert stage, deserves his shot at a big-time recording career. He's been rpesent at the margins, overshadowed by Spivakovsky and Vengerov among Russian exports and by more glamorous non-Russians on the order of Mutter, Hahn, and Bell, not to mention critical favorites like Zimmerman, Kremer, and Tetzlaff. Who would think that having world-class technique and fine musical instincts would make you an also-ran?



My reaction to Repin's Beethoven Concerto is colored by dislike of Muti's blunt condcuting, which fails to find depth in the all-important orchestral part. Listening beyond that, Repin's playing is clean, tasteful, and efficient -- temperamentally a bad fit with Muti. To his credit, Repin avoids the self-conscious mannerisms that spoiled starry Beethoven concertos from Nigel Kennnedy and Vengerov, but you don't feel that he has a strong point of view. For a soloist who can swagger through Tchaikovsky, he's surprisingly polite and small-scale here. If Repin feels the grandeur of Beethoven's masterpiece, it barely comes across. Phrases of enormous expressive import slide by decorously one after another, and by the time we arrive at the finale, Repin is walking on eggshells.



DG throws in a bonus disc of the Kreutzer Sonata, and since the pianist is Martha Argerich, one assumes that sparks will begin to fly at last. Well, not so much. Rather than being carried away by her passionate spontaneity, Repin seems to tame Argerich. He keeps his tone small and elegant, without any attempt to bring out the heroic side of this most heroic of Beethoven's violin sonatas. Part of this reticence, I think, must come from Repin's refusal to abandon a polished tone in favor of something grittier and wilder. Whatever the reason, the Kreutzer falls into the same class of tasteful performance that I can admire but not love.

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