Gil Shaham plays Hartmann concerto at NY Phil in March
This spring is not the first time Gil Shaham’s long-term exploration of iconic “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” has led to collaboration with the New York Philharmonic. Now in its third season, the project saw him join forces with the orchestra for violin concertos by Walton in 2010—when the violinist, recently named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year, demonstrated “easy mastery” and “ample personality” (New York Times)—and by Barber in 2011, when he gave a “rich-toned, gracefully shaped performance” (New York Times). Now the Avery Fisher Prize-winner returns to New York’s Lincoln Center for four accounts of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre (1939) with David Zinman on the podium, on March 15–20. Throughout this spring the violinist takes on concertos for the project by reprising Hartmann’s concerto for two dates with the Bavarian State Orchestra; he takes on the Stravinsky concerto with both the Atlanta Symphony and Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra, plus the Berg concerto with the Paris Orchestra and the New Jersey Symphony, where he couples the Berg with world premiere performances of a new concerto by Richard Danielpour.
The “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” project was conceived when, as the Los Angeles Times puts it, “Shaham began musing about his favorite 20th-century violin concertos at the turn of the millennium. He found to his surprise that most were written in the 1930s.” The tumultuous political events of the 1930s sometimes had a direct impact on the concertos’ composition, notably in the case of Germany’s Karl Amadeus Hartmann, an idealist socialist whose Concerto funèbre was written in 1939 to protest Hitler’s occupation of Prague. The Aspen Times characterizes the work as “an anguished cry from the depth of [the composer’s] soul, the violin an ideal vehicle for expressing its eloquence,” with Shaham’s account at the Aspen Music Festival this past summer “as expressive as it was impeccably played.” Likewise, when he performed the same concerto with the Chicago Symphony, the Chicago Sun-Times paid tribute to his “passion and delicacy.” In addition to his four dates with the New York Philharmonic (March 15–20), Shaham looks forward to two performances of the Hartmann concerto with Munich’s Bavarian State Orchestra and its music director Kent Nagano (June 11 & 12).
When the violinist performed Berg’s Violin Concerto (1935) at the San Francisco Symphony, the San Francisco Chronicle marveled:
“The remarkable blend of acerbity and tenderness…that is Berg’s stylistic fingerprint found expression in Shaham’s full-throated, assertive string tone and aggressive rhythmic edge. He leaped fearlessly into the concerto’s most dissonant writing, giving it a polished sheen that never detracted from its essential difficulty or the emotional urgency that it imparts.”
Berg wrote the elegiac concerto shortly before he died, to commemorate the death of Alma Mahler’s teenage daughter. For Shaham’s three dates with the New Jersey Symphony (April 27–29), he will couple it with another work for solo violin and orchestra, also composed as a memorial, when he undertakes the world premiere of Richard Danielpour’s Kaddish, which honors the composer’s father. Shaham also performs the Berg with the Paris Orchestra on March 28.
For appearances with the Atlanta Symphony (April 12–15), and with Zurich’s Tonhalle-Orchester (May 5 & 6), the master violinist turns to Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto of 1931, a prime example of the legendary Russian’s neoclassical writing, which Balanchine would later use as the score for two ballets. Shaham’s rendition of the work reveals him to be “a consummate technician with an intense emotional side” (Cleveland Plain-Dealer).
The spring season also sees the violinist embark on a European recital tour with Japanese pianist Akira Eguchi, his collaborator on the 2003 Canary Classics release The Fauré Album, “a very special disc, and one to return to often” (MusicWeb International). Appearing in Vienna, Zurich and Milan, as well as at London’s Wigmore Hall, their program features the world premiere of a new work by Julian Milone, In the country of lost things…
Additional information about Gil Shaham is available at www.canaryclassics.com, and a list of his upcoming engagements follows.
Gil Shaham – upcoming engagements
Feb 25; Purchase, NY
Bach: selections from the sonatas and partitas for solo violin
Performing Arts Center – Purchase College
March 10; Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico
Brahms: Violin Concerto
Centro de Bellas Artes (Festival Casals)
March 15, 16, 17 & 20: New York, NY
Hartmann: Concerto funèbre for solo violin and string orchestra
New York Philharmonic / David Zinman
Avery Fisher Hall
March 28; Paris, France
Berg: Concerto
Paris Orchestra
Salle Pleyel
April 12, 14, & 15; Atlanta, GA
Bach: Violin Concerto No. 1
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
April 21; Toronto, ON, Canada
Solo Bach
Koerner Hall (Royal Conservatory of Music)
April 27; Newark, NJ
Berg: Violin Concerto (“To the Memory of an Angel”)
Danielpour: Kaddish (world premiere)
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra / Jacques Lacombe
New Jersey Performing Arts Center
April 28; New Brunswick, NJ
Berg: Violin Concerto (“To the Memory of an Angel”)
Danielpour: Kaddish
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra / Jacques Lacombe
State Theatre
April 29; Morristown, NJ
Berg: Violin Concerto (“To the Memory of an Angel”)
Danielpour: Kaddish
New Jersey Symphony Orchestra / Jacques Lacombe
Community Theatre at Mayo Center for Performing Arts
May 3; London, England
Schubert: Violin sonata (Sonatina) in A minor, D385
Bach: Sonata No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1005
Avner Dorman: Niggunim for violin and piano
Julian Milone: In the country of lost things… (world premiere)
Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25
Akira Eguchi, piano
Wigmore Hall
May 5 & 6; Zurich, Switzerland
Bach: Concerto for violin and orchestra, BWV 1042
Stravinsky: Concerto for violin and orchestra
Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich / Jonathan Nott
May 8; Zurich, Switzerland
Schubert: Violin sonata (Sonatina) in A minor, D385
Bach: Sonata No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1005
Avner Dorman: Niggunim for violin and piano
Julian Milone: In the country of lost things…
Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25
Akira Eguchi, piano
May 9; Vienna, Austria
Schubert: Violin sonata (Sonatina) in A minor, D385
Bach: Sonata No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1005
Avner Dorman: Niggunim for violin and piano
Julian Milone: In the country of lost things…
Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25
Akira Eguchi, piano
May 10; Milan, Italy
Schubert: Violin sonata (Sonatina) in A minor, D385
Bach: Sonata No. 3 for solo violin, BWV 1005
Avner Dorman: Niggunim for violin and piano
Julian Milone: In the country of lost things…
Sarasate: Carmen Fantasy Op. 25
Akira Eguchi, piano
May 31; London, England
Berg: Chamber Concerto
London Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas
June 3; London, England
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 5 (“Turkish”), K 219
London Symphony Orchestra / Michael Tilson Thomas
June 11 & 12; Munich, Germany
Hartmann: Concerto funèbre for solo violin and string orchestra
Bavarian State Orchestra / Kent Nagano
http://www.canaryclassics.com/Artists/Bio/gilshaham
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