Making an impression in a crowded field is quite a challenge, and the field of gifted young violinists is more crowded than most. Exceptional skills remain a player’s best advertisement. Since we live in a superficial age, pleasing looks help. Twenty-six this August, the Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang ticks both boxes, as well as a third: the repertoire box.
To step ahead of the pack, a violinist must offer something beyond the repertoire staples and the warhorse concertos of the 19th century. Something, say, like Nielsen’s violin concerto of 1911: a substantial piece, and a Danish trophy, though still lacking the international stature accorded to its main Scandinavian rival by Sibelius. Frang’s first disc for EMI Classics gave us the Sibelius; now she couples the Nielsen with Tchaikovsky’s, a warhorse concerto if ever there was one, ridden here with such a beguilingly fresh, personal and poetic touch that we seem to be hearing the work for the first time.
Frang shows her mettle as soon as she touches Tchaikovsky’s first principal theme, inflected with dynamic dips and weavings guaranteed to make any listener sit up. Her dappled kaleidoscope continues unabated, allied to a strong sense of rhythm, and an elegantly passionate way of handling long cantabile lines. Solid technique sees her through every peril Tchaikovsky offers, leaving her free to add wit to the dancing finale. I especially love her playful accelerando as she pulls the music back up to speed for the final stretch: a Grand National winner couldn’t have done it better. Solid accompaniment throughout is provided by conductor Eivind Gullberg Jensen and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
The Nielsen itself brings its own special pleasures. They’re quieter in manner: despite two cadenzas, this isn’t a work that blasts us with virtuoso fireworks, least of all in the easygoing finale, built on a humorously ambling theme. Frang calls Nielsen “a Danish version of the noble English composer Edward Elgar”: not a comparison that chimes with me, but it doesn’t stop her being a sensitive and multicoloured guide to a work that might not quite hang together, but is gorgeous in chunks and deserves to be better known. EMI Classics