.co.uk Teldec's latest recording of star violinist Maxim Vengerov awkwardly couples orchestral with chamber music. The Russian wonder-fiddle performs Dvorák's Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur and Elgar's Violin Sonata with pianist Revital Chachamov. Most discs stick to one genre. When Vengerov has contrasted forms before, both composer (Brahms) and accompanist/conductor (Barenboim) were constant. Here one suspects record-company expediency, especially as the recording occasions are so different--Dvorák 1997 in New York, Elgar 1995 in Berlin. The note offers only the fact that Elgar once played under Dvorák's conducting as a spurious link. What do they take us for? The playing is excellent, however, even if the transformation from the grand to the intimate jars. The young Siberian plays Dvorák's mighty, singing and leaping concerto with a feel for central-European exuberance and Elgar's forlorn, whimsical and angry sonata with a sense of old man's introspection. Elgar's second movement is especially fine under Vengerov's bow. The pizzicato fizz-plunk motif knows a lost humour while the sailing second theme holds the expressive key to the work. It returns poignantly at the end of the finale, honouring the composer's lost and injured friends. Vengerov has no right to understand these things but he does. --Rick Jones
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