Chaconnes, Divertimento & Rhapsodies
JS Bach: Chaconne from Partita for solo violin No. 2; Bartók: Rhapsody for Violin & Piano No. 1; Stravinsky: Divertimento; Vitali: Chaconne in G minor; Vladigerov: Bulgarian Rhapsody ‘Vardar’; Castelnuovotedesco: Concert-rhapsodie Figaro on Rossini’s ‘Il barbiere di Siviglia – Largo al factotum
Joo Yeon Sir (violin),
Irina Andrievsky (piano)
Rubicon RCD1030 70:58 mins Suites and fantasies were the mainstay of Joo Yeon Sir’s intelligently-devised 2017 debut disc, and the sequel is just as artfully conceived. At its heart is the four-movement Divertimento Stravinsky fashioned for Samuel Dushkin from his Tchaikovsky-homaging ballet The Fairy’s Kiss
– and it’s bookended by voluptuous resprays of Baroque chaconnes, folk-inflected rhapsodies, plus a whimsical operatic paraphrase by way of programmed encore.
The opening slightly misfires, however. Mendelssohn’s expansion of the Bach D minor Chaconne to admit piano accompaniment is decidedly a case of ‘more is less’; and with the piano somewhat forward in the sound picture (not to mention Irina Andrievsky’s dominant musical personality), the performance seems more about the interloper than the violin. Indeed the unrelieved richness can feel claustrophobic, especially when Sir broaches the Vitali with a similar singing legato and sweetness of tone.
With blood sugar levels rising, the Stravinsky supplies a timely corrective. Viktoria Mullova on Philips is arguably a tad edgier, but the ‘Danses suisses’ are engagingly good-humoured, the Scherzo slyly insouciant, and if the very end of the ‘Pas de deux’ could accommodate a little more tongue-in-cheekery, there are plenty of knowing winks in the violin’s swoops and the piano’s devil-may-care glissandos. Best