These discs have done
the rounds. Recorded in Utrecht they
started off on Clavigram and were subsequently
licensed to Collins, which is where
I first heard them. They’ve now been
revivified by Brilliant Classics both
singly, as here, and as part of a large
Bach Edition issued by that company.
Lubotsky is probably best known on disc
for his Britten and Schnittke but he’s
also been committed to Prokofiev, Tubin
and some of the core repertory. You
can’t get much more core than the Sonatas
and Partitas and Lubotsky, a player
in the strong, Russian romantic tradition,
brings some considerable reserves of
drama and incision to this repertoire
as well as a feeling for extremely expressive
slow movements. But the competition
comprises some of the most distinguished
of names and Lubotsky’s technical and
tonal armouries are not quite as fully
stocked as theirs.
Indeed his approach
throughout is one of elastic tempi in
slow movements that borders on the enervating.
I happen to feel it’s not the tempo
of, say, the Adagio of the First Sonata
that gives the piece such a feeling
of slowness so much as a subtle lack
of rhythmic lift; this also applies
to the Fuga where a lack of cumulative
energy leads to caution and is maybe
explained by some technical compromises.
The Siciliana that follows is, however,
most diverting – lightly articulated
and bowed: gossamer. The First Partita
is a very difficult one to judge and
I do find too much of the playing here
mechanical and uninvolving – the Borea
for example just isn’t ideally buoyant,
through the Double has exceptionally
well defined diminuendi. There are moments
of coarse tone as well – the Fuga of
the Second Sonata is a case in point
(and there are a number of moments when
Lubotsky risks criticism of this kind).
I enjoyed much of the
Second Partita but the Chaconne, though
tending toward the status of an interior
monologue doesn’t have the sense of
inevitability that it should – and there
is invariably a disappointment, a feeling
of the prosaic and the taxed, even amidst
all the fine playing and imaginative
nuances. He’s especially problematic
in Fugues where his tone takes on a
steely, scratchy Hubermanesque quality.
Even with some fine examples of his
imagination in slow movements I’m afraid
a recommendation would not be possible.
Amongst the older romantics Shumsky’s
personalised and leonine playing, so
full of dynamic gradients and tonal
variety, continues to impress. Perlman
is for modern day romantics, Grumiaux
for more general recommendation.
Jonathan Woolf
Mark Lubotsky (violin)
