Music / violinkoncerter

Scottish fantasy


Reviews (4)


MusicWeb international

2018 August

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Brian Wilson (musikanmelder)

2018 August

"Can there really be a market for yet another recording of the Bruch Violin Concerto, with umpteen fine accounts to its name, even when it's as well performed as here, with Joshua Bell as soloist and at the helm of the ASMF, of which he is the director? ... The answer is a modified yes - yes for the quality of the performances but qualified by the spotlighting of the soloist ... Bell letting himself go [in the Violin Concerto] in a way that he might not have dared to do then [in his first recording]. He also captures the spirit of the rhapsodic Scottish Fantasy withoutmaking a meal of it and whilenever losing sight of the need to keep the music moving ... Two very fine performances, then, well recorded".


Fono Forum

2018 September

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Norbert Hornig

2018 September

"Als Solist und Leiter der Academy of St Martin in the Fields breitet Bell das viersätzige Werk wie eine epische Landschaft vor dem Hörer aus. Seine Interpretation betont das Atmosphärische dieser Musik, gelassen, dicht, in ruhigen tempi weit ausholend. Das g-Moll-Violinkonzert ... klingt farbenreicher und nuancierter, aber auch nachdenklicher als die frühe Aufnahme".


BBC music magazine

2018 October

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Michael Tanner (musikanmelder)

2018 October

"Bell, now in charge of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, proves a capable conductor as well as, when required, a sumptuous Romantic violinist. He is fully aware of the performance practices of the time in which these pieces were written, with plenty of portamento and the richest tone that an abandoned vibrato can produce".


The gramophone

2018 July

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Andrew Farach-Colton

2018 July

"At the very opening of the concerto ... there's now more than a dash of gypsy soulfulness and spice. His tone fairly throbs with vibrato, ornately embroidered with portamento. How much warmer the Adagio is, too; less poised and aloof, more ardent and elastic. This elasticity is perhaps even more crucial in the Scottish Fantasy, with its fancifully discursive solo part, and Bell's rubato feels natural and authoritative throughout".