Mozart: Violin Concertos
Renaud Capuçon (violin); Orchestre Chambre de Lausanne
DG 486 4067 117:30 mins (2 discs)
Renaud Capuçon recorded two of Mozart’s violin concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2009, and now returns to the complete set of five, with his own fine Lausanne chamber orchestra. He is a superb violinist in a particular mode of expressiveness: you are never likely to hear a sweeter, more finely spun, more precisely tuned sound at the top of the register than here. (How Mozart must have loved writing lines that soar high above the stave, notes that even his favourite sopranos could not reach!) But there is one matter of taste in this sound: the vibrato is constant and intense.
These five concertos for Salzburg show a rapid maturing of style and structure, and while even Capuçon cannot make a great deal out of the first two, the lovely third, in G, bounces along genially, and its Adagio is sustained right through to the ingenuity of turning its opening phrase into the final cadence. The final Rondeau however alerts us to a problem that will recur in Nos 4 and 5: their finales, with their frankly hilarious interludes, are delivered with po-faced exactness. Where is the humour; where are the unexpected surprises?
What I miss in Capuçon’s playing here is the sheer wit and brightness of, for example, Francesca Dego’s highly praised recent accounts with Roger Norrington. The rumbustious ‘Turkish’ episode in the Fifth, with its creepy chromaticism, works well, but too much else lacks the down-to-earth humour that must surely have had them laughing in Salzburg. Two single movements complete the release, the Rondo in C (with its high top-C ending) and the beautiful Adagio in E, but the Rondo in B flat, K269 is not included. Nicholas Kenyon