Borenstein: Violin Concerto, If you will it, it is no dream & The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe

Album review

To celebrate Vladimir Ashkenazy’s 80th birthday, together with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and the young violinist Irmina Trynkos, this album is a world premiere recording featuring three works by Nimrod Borenstein, a composer whom Ashkenazy has admired and supported for many years. The three pieces differ in size and character, but the composer’s humble hope is that “whilst you listen to them your first thought will be ‘Borenstein’, just as when you hear an unfamiliar piece by a composer you already know you think ‘Beethoven’, ‘Chopin’, or ‘Prokofiev’ – because you recognise something unique to its creator”, quite an ambition to be sure. The short orchestral piece If You Will It, It Is No Dream (2013) is considered as an intense journey into the struggle and wonders of the will, and also an homage to Borenstein’s native country, Israel. The piece contains several examples of his fascination with the feeling of suspension, moments when time seems to pause. The Big Bang and Creation of the Universe (2008-2009) Borenstein’s biggest symphonic work to date, is a piece in which the importance of contrasts – an idée fixe in his style and language – is particularly clear. His search for new ways to create and explore contrasts, the composer explains, has led him to develop a personal system of “multimelodic” counterpoint, using complex juxtapositions of rhythms to create a multiplicity of different atmospheres. When he started to write his Violin Concerto (2012), Borenstein was determined to create a large-scale piece for the violin repertoire, to continue in the line of imposing, “big” concertos by Brahms, Sibelius, or Shostakovich – a challenge particularly dear to him as a violinist. The composer conceives virtuosity as not only the capacity to play fast and precisely but, even more essentially, as the mastery of colours and nuances, and the individuality of the voice. Now, dear reader, it’s up to your ears to fathom the deep musical reasons why Ashkenazy has been championing Borenstein’s music for years and years.