Classic Kennedy | Antonio Vivaldi, Jules Massenet, ...

Classic Kennedy | Antonio Vivaldi, Jules Massenet, ... | The beauty as it is

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Classic Kennedy

	Classic Kennedy Antonio Vivaldi, Jules Massenet, ... EMI Classics, 2000 average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Just in case you thought Nigel Kennedy--fresh from his Hendrix tribute album--had left the classical music repertoire for good, think again. On Classic Kennedy, the fiddler is situated with the English Chamber Orchestra in a program that spans from Bach to Satie. (Yes, you also get a Joni Mitchell tune; "Scarborough Fair"; and the fiddler's own forgettable "Melody in the Wind," too.) The sequencing is a bit disjointed--the summer storm from The Four Seasons is followed by Massenet's blissful "Meditation" from Thaïs--and Kennedy's performances range from good to fair. The English Chamber Orchestra does an admirable job on these diverse works (it deserves a lot of credit here), but it'll be up to the listener to decide whether he or she wants to hear "Air on the G String" followed by Kennedy's version of "Danny Boy." As with most Kennedy discs, you'll either love it or hate it. --Jason Verlinde

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Clearly Kennedy

I had only heard Kennedy one other time and knew that this would be good, as it is. I'm not new to classical music and can say that Kennedy's playing is clear and beautiful. I don't know why others have such a hard time with it, but if it's talented and artistic violin music that you're looking for then this is for you...

The beauty as it is

On a scale of love-hate, I love this CD. No: I -L-O-V-E- it. That is a masterpiece in itself. I'm neither violinist nor classical musician, not even very experienced classical listener - though I enjoy "Der Ring des Nibelungen" much deeper than "Love Me Tender". What strikes me in Nigel's playing, and on this album particularly, is his incredible technical brilliance. When he plays a note it is always THE NOTE he's meant to play. Not a 1/16 tone mistake, not a 1/10 millimeter shift. Few singers are capable of such exactness, much less violin players. With a brush like this, you can paint whatever picture you want. And the pictures of Nigel's are just incredible. The deepest of his feelings are portrayed in his music with such a delicacy and balance, and with great confidence. On to titles: my personal faves are Brahms, Chopin, Bach, Satie and Kroll's. "Banjo and Fiddle" is so ironic and courteous, "Zigeunerweisen" is heartbreaking, "Nocturne in C Sharp minor" makes you breathless of its sweet sadness. "Hungarian Dance 5" swept all other versions away: compared to Kennedy's brave, sharp, masculine, fiery rendition, any other version seems like glucose syrup compared to juicy meat. "Air on the G String" is so airy and transparent. And "Czardas" is probably the best thing I've ever heard in my life...

Flawless. Brilliant. Beautiful.

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Romantic-Styled Playing

I came to love classical music through classical crossover, but have dumped crossover after listening to artists like Perlman and Hahn. So was very apprehensive going back to a "crossover" artist.

After a minute into his interpretation of Vivaldi's third movement of Summer, I was hooked. Although Nigel may not play the pieces in a way that is considered "proper", he brings his own style which is intense and highly emotional. The sound he can extract from his violin is engaging, and I always feel as if his violin is singing/crying to me. I've also heard several versions of "The Flight of the Bumble-Bee", but this version just makes me giggle.

The only weakness for me is the mixing of classical & traditional music. Songs such as "Scarborough Fair" and the Joni Mitchell song seem out of place. Perhaps it was EMI's goal to show Nigel's approach to different styles of music, but "this mixing things up" personally doesn't work for me.

If you like the classical music on this CD, also pick up his Vivaldi CD's. If you like the traditional stuff, then get his "East Meets East" CD.

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Perfection can be saturating

Twenty pieces from as many composers or nearly (two author repeats) from baroque times to modern times, from Italy to the United States, though only from the Western world. The objective of this CD is to show the immense variety of the performer, his virtuosity, flexibility and adaptability. The second objective of this CD is to provide a showcase for the violin that is the real star of the show. But the CD has no real unity in its extreme variety, and it does not speak one language, not even that of the violin, because the violin is only the vocal cord of the composer's language and there is so little in common in the languages of Vivaldi and Gershwin, except the harmonics of the good modern classical violin, which is historically false. Yet the pieces chosen here are so well-known that we can consider the CD as a real success because we move from one beauty to the next, from one piece of candy to the subsequent next sweet. It looks like the table laden with all the sweets and pastries at the beginning of Forman's film "Amadeus", that table under which Mozart is smooching with his future wife, and from which the glutton and jealous Salmieri is satisfying his sweet tooth, his gluttony. In the end we can even get slightly sick with too much sugar, honey or hydromel. A menu must have some unity beyond contrastive elements but we cannot really enjoy a four course meal, or a twenty course banquet at that, if all the courses are nothing but different preparations of one single element, be it pumpkin, mint or cherries. But such a CD has an audience. Those who want to enjoy one three to four minute piece after another with no obligation to bridge or cement the eighty minutes or so of the whole CD together. Twenty drops of pleasure that do not make an ocean in which one could get drowned. The unity comes really from Nigel Kennedy's personal harmonics. But that's not what I expect. I expect a Bohemian, even gypsy, or Jewish style for some pieces. And I do not hear the ascetic Lutheran Bach the same way as the brilliant bright exuberant Catholic Vivaldi. They don't even see the instrument the same way. Too much homogenizing makes things kind of less original.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Tracks
3rd movement (Presto) | No. 5 | No.1 | Air on the G String | The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba | The Girl With the Flaxen Hair | Prelude No. 2 | The Flight of the Bumble Bee

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