Elgar's Violin Concerto stands apart from the harried and urgent 20th century; it stands apart from whole swaths of the violin repertoire, as well. Its 50 minutes of expansive music seem to follow no structural norms, and where the climax should land in the third and final movement is a long and winding cadenza that eventually leads back to the concerto's first theme. That third movement, instead of leading a chest-thumping way to British martial victory or allowing for flashy virtuoso display, starts with a nocturnal rustle of unsettled rising quintuplets. Other long stretches suggest that they started life as operatic recitative, only to lose the words and wind up in a violin concerto. (See On an Overgrown Path for background on the mystery of the concerto's second movement.)
The number of violinists who have taken up the work is few, but includes Yehudi Menuhin (with the indispensable recording with the composer at the helm, Archiv link), Itzhak Perlman, Nigel Kennedy (before he took up jazz...) and Hilary Hahn, who recorded and toured with the work a few years back. Keeping it from floating off into an episodic English haze is no easy task, but Hahn was up to it, and so too is Gil Shaham, who played it last night with the Chicago Symphony.
Shaham's range of colors worked to keep a sense of variety throughout the epic work. The delicate fake folk fiddling in the first movement, the lyrical plaint of the second, not to mention the outrageous outbursts found along the way; through all of them, your attention was kept from wandering too far.
It was a gross dereliction when DG cut Shaham loose a couple years ago to take on such comparable artistic non-entities as Nicole Benedetti, but he lost out on the hotness stakes that DG's apparently now in thrall to. A thickening middle-aged man stands no chance against Benedetti; more's the pity. Daniel Hope, DG's most recent violin signee, better watch out.
David Zinman was conducting, by the way, and worked confidently with Shaham, leading a responsive orchestra as the work pitched and heaved. He began with the string-orchestra version of Osvaldo Golijov's tango-riffic Last Round, Golijov's Piazzolla tribute. Originally for double string quartet and bass, he blew it up and blew out its proportions in 2000. Like Rudolf Barshai's string-orchestra transcriptions of Shostakovich's string quartets, this is another unenlightening exercise in expanded forces.
I'll take it in the original version, sharply recorded by the St. Lawrence and Ying Quartets in 2002. (Archiv link.) The snap and responsiveness of a small ensemble sets the opening aggressive tone infinitely better, and the long violin glissandos are a more-accurate echo of a tango ensemble. With a squadron of violins, it sounds like an air-raid siren going off.
Zinman also led a richly detailed account of Schumann's Second Symphony after intermission. The woodwind choir shone, which isn't always the case in Schumann performances, given the occasional awkward octave doubling. If they can keep it up, the Florida tour audiences should be happy.