Nigel Kennedy - Bartók: Sonata for Solo Violin / Ellington: Black, Brown and Beige Suite (1986 Reissue) (2018)

In many performances of the Bartok Solo Sonata its legendary difficulty is more apparent than its beauty and nobility: the violinist sweats profusely in a cloud of resin dust, his bow reduced to a tangle of snapped horse-hair, and the sound he produces is gritty and rebarbative, eloquently expressive of strenuous effort. Nigel Kennedy's account is the most warmly lyrical that I have heard, his tone beautiful and expressive in even the most hair-raising passages. The notorious hazards are expertly negotiated, but in this reading one is more likely to notice subtler manifestations of virtuosity: the clarity and character of the part-writing in the fuge or the exquisite range of colour and dynamic shading in the slow movement. The singing line and rich sonority of the Chaconne and the strength and agility of the finale are achieved quite effortlessly: the work has rarely sounded so beautiful (we are reminded that it is late Bartok, after all, written immediately after the Concerto for Orchestra) but, I am bound to say, it has occasionally sounded more urgent, more vehement.
Bartok was no doubt seriously underestimating when he described the Sonata, soon after writing it, as lasting ''20 minutes''; the published edition (prepared by Sir Yehudi Menuhin, who commissioned the score and worked closely on it with the composer) revises this timing to just under 24 minutes. Kennedy is not alone in taking considerably longer than this (29 minutes, in his case), but his very technical assurance, his prevailing lyricism and his frequent use of expressive rubato—his wholly praiseworthy redressing of the balance in favour of Bartok the melodist—perhaps inevitably reduce the Sonata's sheer power and dramatic impact somewhat.
The Ellington is not such a disparate coupling as it might seem. Mainly black is not a transcription of Black, brown and beige for violin and double-bass, but a wholesale rethinking of its material for a quite different medium (including, of course, space for improvisation). Kennedy does not abandon the resources of his Bartok-honed technique to approach this music: he seasons his virtuousity, rather, with the rhythmic bounce, the 'blue' notes and microtonal inflections of Ellington's violinist, Ray Nance (his bass-player is something of a virtuoso, too, and no mere accompanist). Some purists might find the result too 'violinistic', too hybrid and studied (but jazz purists have for years been describing Ellington's compositions themselves as too studied); some others will regret that Kennedy did not tighten up the structure of the suite while he was at it (it is longer than the Bartok, but much more discursive). But the seemingly unpromising medium—an orchestral score reduced to a duet—is in fact well-calculated to concentrate on the fundamental lyricism of Ellington's language and the gravity and melancholy that are essential to it, and Kennedy's response to Ellington the melodist is as warm and direct as to Bartok.
A most stimulating and enjoyable coupling, despite my regretful reservation, and it is beautifully recorded.