Barry McKimm: Violin concerto - one of the best!

[violinconcerto]

I am working on the violin concertos of the 20th century for a long time, listened to thousands of different violin concertos and meanwhile published over 40 scores of forgotten violin concertos. But right now I am extremely proud and excited to have the chance to present the full score and a complete recording of one of the most brilliant and most beautiful violin concertos from the 20th century! So please take some minutes to check it out (try the first movement):

Barry McKimm (*1941): Violin concerto (1980)

full score and complete recording of the world premiere here: http://www.tobias-broeker.de/rare-manuscripts/violin-concertos/barry-mckimm/


I know the work clearly misses the 1918 barrier, but the work is most beautiful and maybe not typically romantic, but based on melody, so many of you should like it!

I am interested in your opinion!

Best,
Tobias

[Gareth Vaughan]

What a gorgeous work. Fantastic orchestration and,  as you say, full of beautiful melody. I hope it gets taken up and played often - and recorded too, of course.

[Alan Howe]

one of the most brilliant and most beautiful violin concertos from the 20th century!

Very lovely, it's true. But the competition's super-hot - and not for this forum!

[violinconcerto]

What a gorgeous work. Fantastic orchestration and,  as you say, full of beautiful melody. I hope it gets taken up and played often - and recorded too, of course.

I am pleased that you like it, it is fantastic. And I really hope that it is played again, because the performance of the world premiere isn't really perfect. So the work definitely deserves a wonderful new performance!

[Alan Howe]

The performance is good enough to show the quality of the piece, but it certainly features some poor violin playing.

[Double-A]

In partial defense of the soloist:

I don't know what other people object to in his/her performance but to me the main point is too much détaché:  In a technical sense but also literally:  Detaching the notes from each other, giving each note is own emphasis--rather than connecting them to a melody.  In other words there is not enough singing in the violin playing.  Amusingly enough the singing seems to be present whenever the harp gets involved but in many other places it is lacking.

However:  The instrumentation may be fantastic.  It is also quite massive and forces the soloist to force the tone most of the time.  If one plays at the upper end of the dynamic scale singing gets hard to do.  Unfortunately though the soloist plays as loud as (s)he can in the cadenza as well where (s)he goes down to piano just once if I remember correctly.

BTW it seems to me that the soloist may play jazz:  There is a long note in the first movement for example that the violin begins flat (very noticeably flat).  It does not correct immediately like it happens with well trained classical players who correct such mishaps subconsciously before even consciously noticing them.  Instead it stays flat, then slides slowly upward and reaches correct pitch about midway through the note.  This is something often done in jazz and is here either deliberate or it just slipped in in the heat of performance.  There is also a jazzy feel in some of the passage work.

I agree though that the work has great merit.