Virtuosity is a given in a pair of superbly characterised concertos
The Strad Issue: February 2025
Description: Virtuosity is a given in a pair of superbly characterised concertos
Musicians: Ning Feng (violin) Bochum Symphony Orchestra/Tung-Chieh Chuang
Works: Prokofiev: Violin Concerto no.1. Shostakovich: Violin Concerto no.1
Catalogue number: CHANNEL CLASSICS CCS45924
Ning Feng plays the opening melody of Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto with veiled, mournful tone, before demonstrating gleaming, beautifully focused sound in the heights of the E string and, further in, a gritty, biting staccato; he matches Prokofiev’s constantly shifting moods, and his intensity is captured by close recording. The Scherzo snaps and sparkles, surging along on a wave of impeccable technique. Ning Feng is supple in the long-breathed melodies of the third movement, which he moulds with magisterial control, variously sinuous, caustic and luminous. This is an altogether winning performance.
The bleak outset of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto uncoils, in Feng’s hands, with steady lyrical grace, its muted passages exquisitely melancholic. The Scherzo is not as hectically driven as some, but progresses with a punchy sense of inevitability, its restless energy developing into thrillingly headlong drama. He punctures the grim tutti at the beginning of the Passacaglia with playing of hushed sweetness, and from there builds relentlessly into fierce, tough-toned tragedy before artfully uncoiling towards the cadenza, played steadily with a full tone before letting rip in the frenzy of the second half (he can be forgiven jumping the gun at the accelerando: he isn’t the first). The closing Burlesque is superbly played, with appropriately manic abandon.
TIM HOMFRAY
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