Brahms, Viotti & Dvořák: Orchestral Works

Album review

All of the principals here were close associates of the late pianist Lars Vogt, and this Ondine release, which landed on classical best-seller charts in the autumn of 2023, is intended as a tribute to him. Vogt loved Brahms, and the main attraction is a performance of the Double Concerto in A minor for violin, cello, and orchestra, Op. 102, by Christian Tetzlaff, Tanja Tetzlaff, and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under the usually somewhat cerebral conductor Paavo Järvi, who turns in quite a passionate performance here. The Double Concerto is structured unlike anything else Brahms (or really anyone else) ever wrote, opening with quasi-improvisatory passages in the cello and then the violin that are reconciled and brought within a Classical structure as the movement proceeds. The Tetzlaffs, in an interview-format booklet, suggest that the opening represents the feuding Brahms and violinist Joseph Joachim, for whom the concerto was meant as a kind of peace offering. Whatever the actual case, the idea results in a performance of considerable tension. Also figuring into the biographical interpretation is the inclusion of Giovanni Battista Viotti's Violin Concerto No. 22 in A minor, which at first glance may seem an odd pairing. The work was a favorite of both Brahms and Viotti, and hints of Viotti's music seem to recur in the Brahms concerto, again as a kind of peace offering or, it has been suggested, a subconscious reference. The album ends with a warm performance by Tanja Tetzlaff of Silent Woods from Dvořák's From the Bohemian Forest, Op. 68, not directly connected to the biographical theme but full of a spirit of calm reconciliation. It is a fine conclusion to a powerful album.
© James Manheim /TiVo