Riccardo Muti conducted Vadim Repin, his named 1708 Stradivarius and the New York Philharmonic through Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto on Thursday. I’m no scholar, but I can say that this piece is the most awesomest of awesome awesomenesses (there, I’ve said it.) And V. Repin tore it up in a way far more dazzling than the no-name $3.99 CD of the recording I bought some time in college. Seriously, during the slow movement, I was sweating. There were quiet moments when you could hear the hairs on the back of the neck of the old woman in front of you stand up. And when the whole orchestra blammed in for the big finish, it was a knock-out punch. It comes down to this: The Violin Concerto, once thought impossible to play (Tchaikovsky’s originally selected performer refused it) is the classical world’s version of Hendrix jamming with his teeth or Eddie Van Halen playing behind his head. It was intended to make your jaw drop and it does a pretty good job of that.
I’d never heard the music of Scriabin before, but I knew to expect a lot of bombast (“a long-winded mass of mystical mush” is how the NY Times describes this piece.) It wasn’t atonal or anything, just, like, a lot. I enjoyed it — it was really frickin’ loud, for one thing — but I can’t deny that at 50 minutes it tried my patience a little. But the energy and intensity and muscular sound of the brass kept me involved. Can’t say the same for the older couple to my left who both fell asleep (first she, then he, kinda cute the way they leaned on each other) or the youngish couple in front of one another who typed notes to each other on their blackberry. At least nobody walked out.
