Elgar: Violin Concerto, Violin Sonata
Renaud Capuçon (violin), Stephen Hough (piano)
Simon Rattle / London Symphony (Erato)
(scroll down for English review)
卡普森把艾爾加小提琴協奏曲及奏鳴曲齊集一碟，也找來重量級的英國搭檔。軌一至三的協奏曲，我起初聽覺得第一樂章好像尚未熱身，但聽完全曲再回頭聽一次第一樂章，才明白卡普森在全曲的意圖是避免感傷。這個錄音我最喜歡第二樂章，首先是因為拉圖更用心去為樂隊造句，而卡普森在第一樂章的克制也給這裏留下更大的抒情空間。第三樂章卡普森則能做出清爽滑溜之感覺，中段的懷緬憂鬱之情，非常含蓄地表達，華彩段我覺得卡普森以華麗琴音為重，用箇中的美態去刻劃感情。
接着的奏鳴曲，隔了兩個月再聽，始終也不是和協奏曲可相提並論的作品，艾爾加的簡單旋律往往有點乏味。話雖如此，卡普森沒有過度修飾的琴音仍能帶出箇中簡樸味道，假如不想聽完全首20分鐘，就聽軌五的行板，中段也算感人。
More violinists should have come up with the idea of pairing the Elgar concerto with his sonata, now Capuçon is probably the first big-name violinist in the CD era to do so. And he got star collaborators from Britain as well. In the concerto, on first listening of the first movement, I had the impression that both Capuçon and Rattle wasn’t that into it. But after listening to the whole work and getting a better idea of their intentions, a repeated listening of the first movement convinced me that Capuçon was avoiding sentimentality.
Yet my favourite moments were with the second movement, Rattle asked for very passionate playing from his orchestra and Capuçon’s restrain in the first movement allowed for the elegiac quality of this movement to shine through. The third movement had Capuçon delivering a smooth and agile first half, then he brought out the nostalgia of the second half mildly but it was still very moving. Less is more was also the keyword for Capuçon’s cadenza.
After listening to Pike and Capuçon’s recordings of the sonata, I seem to understand why it wasn’t played more often. It does fall in the shadow of the truly remarkable concerto. Elgar aimed to be simple but in most moments the simplicity fell short. But I still enjoyed Capuçon’s second movement, his no-frills approach with his trademark tonal beauty carried the simplistic charms of this movement very well.