Bartók • Beethoven • John Casken: Concertos etc

Bartók • Beethoven • John Casken
John Casken: That Subtle Knot – double concerto for violin and viola; Bartók: Viola Concerto; Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
Ruth Killius (viola); Royal Northern Sinfonia/Thomas Zehetmair (violin)
ECM ECM 2595   77:38 mins

This well-proportioned programme captures Thomas Zehetmair’s 2014 farewell concert as music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, with his wife, viola player Ruth Killius, in the Bartók, and a double concerto, That Subtle Knot, written for them by John Casken.

The title of Casken’s double concerto, taken from The Ecstasy by John Donne, is mirrored in the intertwining of the solo lines, which develop from the spare, modally inflected, folk-like beginning. Much of the music is slow and meditative, interrupted by a few more rhythmic sections, where textures are fuller and more acerbic, but it rises to passionate climaxes, and is given a performance to match.

It’s not a great leap to the autumnal world of Bartók’s Viola Concerto, where the soloist’s opening line is a close cousin to the Casken. Again there’s passion in the music, especially in the central Adagio religioso, even though it’s more restrained here. Killius finds the right internal warmth, but is also skittish in the helter-skelter finale.

The orchestra shows off its own credentials in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which starts at a terrific lick, and is incredibly exciting. It takes a little while to settle in rhythmic detail, but Zehetmair encourages the longer melodic lines to bloom without losing impetus.

There’s more flexibility in the Andante, although it never hangs about, and the textures are clean and bright. The Scherzo surprises with its accents and wide range of dynamics, before the release of the finale, controlled, but rushing to a thrilling conclusion.

The recording could have more presence, but this is very much a document of a live event. It’s a pity that they edited out the applause.

Martin Cotton