Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang made her debut in 2010 with a pairing of concertos by Sibelius and Prokofiev. She repeats the formula here with works by Nielsen and Tchaikovsky, a somewhat risky move. But the fact is that she's exceptionally good in these repertories. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, is in a way a work constrained by its tremendous virtuosity and the long performing tradition of which it is a part. It's hard to come up with something really new to say to it, but Frang makes a strong ...
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Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang made her debut in 2010 with a pairing of concertos by Sibelius and Prokofiev. She repeats the formula here with works by Nielsen and Tchaikovsky, a somewhat risky move. But the fact is that she's exceptionally good in these repertories. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, is in a way a work constrained by its tremendous virtuosity and the long performing tradition of which it is a part. It's hard to come up with something really new to say to it, but Frang makes a strong contribution with a graceful reading that avoids the tendency to push the big passages of the outer movement to a point just short of (or, in concert, just past) where a string breaks from the effort to get maximum volume out of it. Instead she favors detailed shaping of complicated stretches of passagework. It's quite distinctive, but the real news here is the Nielsen Violin Concerto, Op. 33, which had its premiere in 1912 and is not terribly often performed. It's a complex work in a...
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