The fourth program of the Orchester Métropolitain’s next season (November 17 and 18) will allow Montreal audiences to meet Spanish prodigy violinist Maria Dueñas, who will bring the Violin Concerto by Norwegian Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935).
Born in Granada in 2002, the violinist signed a contract with the prestigious German label Deutsche Grammophon last year after winning the Yehudi-Menuhin Competition hands down. The yellow label rolled out the red carpet for him for his first album, offering him to record nothing less than the Violin Concerto by Beethoven with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Manfred Honeck, conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.
The Austrian ensemble and the Andalusian soloist grace us with royal sounds. The Stradivarius of Dueñas produces a lush and warm sound under the vault of the Golden Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna.
However, you have to like his very slack, very Apollonian Beethoven. We are more on the side of Mutter/Karajan than more cursive, Dionysian versions of Heifetz/Munch, Tetzlaff/Zinman or Faust/Abbado for example, produced in almost 10 minutes less than Dueñas/Honeck (12 for Heifetz!).
We may like a more conquering first movement, a more lively Larghetto or a more playful Rondo, but in the genre, it’s very well done. Each note of the violin unfolds with fullness, and Honeck makes his orchestra sing magnificently, with a tranquility that is never lethargic. And rare, it is the violinist who offers her own cadences.
The album, named Beethoven and Beyondis completed by genre pieces for violin and orchestra (transcriptions for some), including the Havanese of Saint-Saens, the liebeslied of Kreisler and the Legend by Wieniawski. All works where the aforementioned qualities of the soloist are at their peak.
Original idea, the violinist also adds to her program the five cadenzas of the first movement of Beethoven’s concerto composed by Kreisler, Wieniawski, Spohr, Saint-Saëns and Ysaÿe.
Classical music
Beethoven and Beyond
Maria Dueñas and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra
German Grammophon