Gil Shaham plays Stravinsky & Prokofiev with Robertson (Apr 9-18)
Earlier this spring, Gil Shaham joined David Robertson at the New York Philharmonic, receiving a warm welcome for his “rich-toned, gracefully shaped performance of Barber’s Violin Concerto” (New York Times). The Barber, which dates from 1939, is one of the works featured in the violinist’s current long-term project, an exploration of the “Violin Concertos of the 1930s”. Now, to continue the undertaking, Shaham rejoins the conductor for ten days with the Saint Louis Symphony, where Robertson is Music Director. Together they focus on two concertos in particular: Stravinsky’s, of 1931, and Prokofiev’s Second, which dates from 1935. In St. Louis, at the orchestra’s home, they perform the Prokofiev twice (April 9 & 10) and then the Stravinsky (April 11), coupling it with Mozart’s Second. Next they embark on a West Coast tour with the orchestra, tackling the Stravinsky at Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall (April 14) and San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall (April 17), and reprising the Prokofiev in Palm Desert, CA (April 15) and Davis, CA (April 16), before taking it to the Davies Symphony Hall for the closing night (April 17).
“Violin Concertos of the 1930s” was conceived when, as David Mermelstein describes in the Los Angeles Times, “one of the era’s star fiddlers, 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.” As Barbara Jepson reports in a Wall Street Journal feature:
“In the 1930s, horrific developments in Europe ultimately swept more than 50 countries into the most destructive global conflict ever known. Coincidentally during that decade, at least 14 significant composers wrote violin concertos, many for the first time. The list includes Samuel Barber, … Béla Bartók (his second for the instrument), Alban Berg, Ernest Bloch, Benjamin Britten, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston, Sergei Prokofiev (his second), Arnold Schoenberg, Roger Sessions, Igor Stravinsky, Karol Szymanowski, and William Walton.”
In some cases, notably Hartmann’s, the turbulent political events of the period directly impacted the concertos’ composition. And although, as Shaham admits, he initially undertook the project as an excuse to play his favorite music, he points out that “there’s something about a great work of music that’s like a sculpture. It doesn’t matter which angle you choose to look at – you can learn from it.”
His recent collaboration with David Robertson was by no means a first for Shaham, for the two have associated – first professionally and then personally – for many years. The violinist describes their longstanding relationship:
“I actually met David professionally first, 23 years ago. My first impression was, what a nice man, what a great musician, and what a fantastic conductor. Now we are brothers-in-law! I love hanging out with him on the weekends and working with him.”
The music director of the Saint Louis Symphony since 2005, Robertson also serves as principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In their upcoming concerts, the pair will showcase Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto in D (1931), a neoclassical work in four short movements. Stravinsky disliked the fussy virtuosity often associated with solo violin writing, and his concerto is based on a single chord stretched over two octaves. When he asked Samuel Dushkin, his original soloist, whether the chord would be playable, Dushkin initially replied in the negative. Yet with practice the violinist mastered it, and the open, pared-down sound of Stravinsky’s concerto was born.
Following Shaham’s account of the work with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2009, the Plain-Dealer declared.
“Shaham is a consummate technician with an intense emotional side. Appearing this weekend as the soloist in Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, Shaham enjoys himself enormously, meeting the spiky, animated piece head-on with snappy attacks and a focused, laser-like sound. … But Shaham’s most poetic work takes place in the concerto’s two arias. On top of light, chugging figures in the cellos and basses, Shaham drops out tender-soft notes like cotton balls on a bed of feathers.”
The neoclassical meets the Classical when Shaham couples the Stravinsky with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in D (K. 21) at the Saint Louis Symphony’s home (April 11). Later that week he performs Stravinsky’s concerto twice more on tour, first at Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall (April 14) and then at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall (April 17).
Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63 (1935) was directly inspired by Stravinsky’s. The first performance of Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins was given by Dushkin and French violinist Robert Soetens, and, on learning that Stravinsky had just composed a concerto for Dushkin, Prokofiev decided to do the same for Soetens. His ensuing concerto is more conventional than some of his earlier works, and evokes the folk music of both Russia and Spain. A longtime champion of the work, Shaham recorded it with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon back in 1996, prompting this tribute from Gramophone magazine’s veteran music critic Rob Cowan:
“Devoted as I am to earlier interpreters of these two masterpieces [Prokofiev’s two violin concertos] (especially Oistrakh in the First and Heifetz in the Second), I can honestly say that I have never encountered performances where soloist, orchestra, and conductor connect with such unerring intuition, where the music – rather than its superficial display potential – is treated so naturally. … An excellent CD.”
With Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony, Shaham performs the Prokofiev twice in St. Louis (April 9 & 10) and three times in California, first in Palm Desert’s McCallum Theatre (April 15), then the Mondavi Center at UC Davis (April 16), and finally, on the closing night of the tour, at San Francisco’s Davies Symphony Hall (April 18).
Later this season, Shaham and Robertson resume their partnership performing more concertos of the 1930s, reprising the Barber with the BBC Symphony at London’s BBC Proms (August 26), and tackling Berg’s seminal concerto of 1935 with the Staatskapelle Dresden (June 13-15); when Shaham performed the Berg last November, the Los Angeles Times’s Mark Swed commented on his “characteristic lovely tone and easy virtuosity.”
In the meantime, Shaham offers more opportunities to examine concertos from the troubled pre-war years, performing the Stravinsky again, first with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony (April 29 & 30) and then with Mariss Jansons conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony (June 24 and 25); the Barber, with the Philharmonia under Kirill Karabits (May 19 & 20); and William Walton’s Concerto of 1938-39, with the Philharmonia Orchestra directed by Hugh Wolff (May 12 & 13).
Gil Shaham – upcoming engagements
April 9 & 10
St. Louis, MO
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
April 11
St. Louis, MO
Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 2
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
April 14
Los Angeles, CA
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
Walt Disney Concert Hall
April 15
Palm Desert, CA
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
McCallum Theatre
April 16
Davis, CA
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
Mondavi Center, UC Davis
April 17
San Francisco, CA
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
Davies Symphony Hall
April 18
San Francisco, CA
Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2
Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
Davies Symphony Hall
April 24
Richmond, VA
Program includes music by Sarasate
Richmond Symphony / conductor TBA
Carpenter Center
April 29 & 30
Baltimore, MD
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra / Alsop
May 12 & 13
London, UK
Walton: Violin Concerto
Philharmonia Orchestra / Hugh Wolff
May 19 & 20
London, UK
Barber: Violin Concerto
Philharmonia Orchestra / Karabits
June 13-15
Dresden, Germany
Berg: Violin Concerto
Staatskapelle Dresden / Robertson
June 24 & 25
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra / Jansons
August 26
London, UK
Barber: Violin Concerto
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Robertson
Royal Albert Hall
www.canaryclassics.com/gilshaham.php
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© 21C Media Group, April 2010