Mendelssohn & Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos
Akiko Suwanai, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra & Vladimir Ashkenazy
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| Total: 6 Songs |
Customer Reviews
I liked it...
I thought the recording was quite good. Suwanai pulls a beautiful sound and phrases very flowingly. Rather than imbuing the works with personal style, like Perlman or Oistrakh, Suwanai's playing remains very transparent and allows the piece the speak through more easily. Yet, it does lack brilliance and attitude. Nonetheless, I own many recordings of this piece and I enjoy this recording just as much as I enjoy the others.
Strong performance
The only thing I find weak here is the reviewer Algaenyc (sp?). There are a lot of armchair critics of violin virtuosi who ridicule those artist who aren't of a certain pedigree. Check the crits on music sites and other entertainment internet portals like youtube - a lot of not-so-fringe racist comments about violin virtuosos of asian decent giving "soul-less" performances. I want to stay on topic here so I should say that reviewer mentioned above did copy and paste the information accurately from Wikipedia about the Dolphin Stradivarius that Akiko plays. Also, since recording has come such a long way in the last 20-30 years, I would find it pretty hard to compare this performance in its entirety to that of long deceased musicians like Heifetz. Personally, I own two other performances of this Tchaikovsky concerto and I like this one nearly as well as the performance by Perlman. My recommendation: buy.
Weak
Suwanai's performance doesn't match her reputation as the youngest winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition here. I don't see either technical brilliance like Jascha Heifetz (she plays Stradivarius 1714 violin ‘Dolphin’, one of the most famous violins known today and previously owned by the celebrated violinist Jascha Heifetz) or lyrical mastery like Kyung-Wha Chung. A mediocre disc.
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