08Con Moto, Molto Semplice (From Concerto No. 2) 5:00

Tigran Mansurian: Violin Concerto No. 2 "Four Serious Songs" (excerpt)

Song: Con Moto, Molto Semplice (From Concerto No. 2)

Con Moto, Molto Semplice (From Concerto No. 2) from Quasi Parlando

Quasi Parlando by Patricia Kopatchinskaja

The concerto is often thought of as a platform for soloists to show off their stuff (as in the Adams piece above), but Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian takes the opposite path. His Concerto No. 2, "Four Serious Songs" (2006) for violin and string orchestra, feels more like an austere and intimate ritual devoid of pride and opulence. In this superb new recording, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja often plays alone and with little or no vibrato. You can almost feel a chill, bone-dry wind blowing through the music in icy glissandos and barren passages that seem to wander off. There are no "songs" (or little that's hummable) in this evocative concerto. Instead the reference is to Brahms and his late Four Serious Songs. Brahms' first three songs, with texts from the Old Testament, reflect on the transience of life; the final song, from 1 Corinthians 13, invokes the power of love. Fittingly, there are passages in the fourth and final movement of Mansurian's concerto (excerpted here) where a gently swaying group of strings provides some much needed warmth — and perhaps a ray of hope.