Schumann: Violin Concerto in d, WoO 23
Bruch: Violin Concerto no. 1 in g, op. 26
A genuine asset, this new album featuring Dutch violinist Niek Baar in the leading role. His greatest challenge: Schumann's Violin Concerto, as he explains in the introduction himself, because the solo violin plays almost continuously in the same register as the orchestra, creating constant tension.
What unites both violin concertos is that they were composed with the great violist Joseph Joachim in mind, to whom they are also dedicated. The Violin Concerto by Schumann in particular has a remarkable history, about which you can read here.
Together with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern conducted by Christoph Poppen, Baar delivers a particularly beautifully refined and fluid performance, with a fine sense for dynamic proportion and attention to detail. Soloist and conductor manage to interpret themselves well into this romantic style, as evidenced by the lyrical and brooding melodic lines that lack any hint of routine. The more elegiac aspects are also developed with considerable empathy. A sense of form and content is equally present, giving the music both purpose and direction. The narrative character of these interpretations makes a strong impression thanks to the imaginative approach.
This time it was not Jared Sacks but Ralf Schnellbach who was responsible for the excellent recording.
In this edition, Schumann's Violin Concerto has been assigned the WoO 1, rather than WoO 23. This is due to an attempt by Hofmann and Keil to arrange Schumann's unpublished works in chronological order. They published their list in 1982, after which this became the standard. Now that the list has been found to contain errors, a number of musicians and musicologists are reverting to the original numbering.