Nicholas Maw: Violin Concerto  (Audio CD) 
by Joshua Bell

Long before the so-called "New Tonalists" entered the marketplace, British-born composer Nicholas Maw made a break with the once-reigning orthodoxy of postwar serial composers. He forged his own brand of latter-day Romanticism, while still finding ways to incorporate aspects of atonality into a potent personal style. Since then Maw has remained an intrepid individualist, creating a body of carefully crafted, substantial, rapturously lyrical works--from the busy poetry of Ghost Dances to the much-anticipated opera-in-progress Sophie's Choice. The Violin Concerto is quintessential Maw: patient in its unfolding, masterfully proportioned, symphonic in scope. Even more typical is the way Maw recuperates idioms of the past--the grand Romantic violin concerto--with an extraordinary freshness and honesty of vision so often lacking among the now-trendy New Tonalists. Like his nearly-100-minute Brucknerian symphony Odyssey--Simon Rattle's fine recording of which is sadly out of print--the Concerto spins out long-limbed themes that mix memory and desire (with a knowing nod to Berg's own Violin Concerto). Maw wrote the piece for Joshua Bell, whose lush but disciplined tone and emotional weight indeed make perfect advocacy for this concerto. From his entrance in the prelude, Bell opens the curtain with a profoundly elegiac air that spills into a highly charged scherzo (despite being the longest movement, it never feels disproportionate) followed by a slow movement of floating beauty and finally reaching a musical delta that seems unstoppable in invention and showcases Maw's magical command in writing for large orchestra. Roger Norrington leads the London Philharmonic with breadth and deep focus. This is an important work and very highly recommended. --Thomas May