Gramophone Magazine highlights Nicola Benedetti’s Decca Classics album as an Essential Recording of the Bruch Violin Concerto
Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1 – a quick guide to the best recordings
Gramophone Magazine
May 24, 2021
Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 with Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto
Nicola Benedetti vn Czech Philharmonic Orchestra / Jakub Hruša
Decca Classics
This makes an excellent coupling. Benedetti’s interpretations have much that is individual in them, notably that more regularly than most great virtuosos on disc she uses very often the gentlest of whispered pianissimos, with impressive effect. She establishes that quality in the long first movement of the Tchaikovsky, where so many artists in the lyrical second subject play with a big, fat tone. Her her regular use of extreme rubato rarely if ever sounds contrived, always spontaneous and from the heart.
The Bruch is just as compelling. The first movement is deeply meditative, with exceptionally clean and precise double-stopping. As in the Tchaikovsky, the slow movement is unusually slow and played with much rubato but the result is deeply thoughtful and well sustained, with inner tensions conveyed, while Jakub Hrusa draws from the Czech Philharmonic playing that’s just as free in its use of rubato, a tribute to the players’ responsiveness and to his control. Altogether a very competitive coupling of two of the great violin warhorses.
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