Joshua Bell

Thomas de Hartmann Rediscovered
Pentatone

After some 30 years one can easily take the violinist Joshua Bell for granted. Technique? Smoothly excellent. The repertoire played? Mostly pretty standard. Even so, this is the violinist who famously took part in a social experiment in 2007, busking in a baseball cap at a Washington DC subway station.

He’s also the violinist who is impressively championing a magical violin concerto written in 1943 by the Ukrainian-born Thomas de Hartmann, a composer mostly remembered until recently for his association with the spiritual teacher G I Gurdjieff.

In this first commercial recording, the orchestra’s eleven slow-moving chords cast a spell even before Bell enters, pungent and soulful, soaring high above. De Hartmann’s eclectic, passionate music, written in a Paris suburb during the Nazi occupation, blends echoes of Ukrainian folk songs, the Jewish synagogue, and the French Impressionist composers. But whatever the concerto’s mood (fiery, macabre, very sad), feelings run high, as they clearly did with Bell himself.

His colourful hues and rhythmical finesse never fade even when the notes hurtle at breakneck speed. The orchestra plays with equally obvious heart and soul, as expected from Ukraine’s INSO-Lviv Symphony Orchestra, recorded in Warsaw this January, conducted by the increasingly invaluable Dalia Stasevska.

Quality doesn’t dip either in Hartmann’s 1935 Cello Concerto, another substantial and heartfelt creation, recorded with the adventurous Matt Haimovitz as soloist and the conductor Dennis Russell Davies. This is a most attractive album, and should do de Hartmann’s cause much good. It won’t hurt Joshua Bell either.