Listening to Jasper Wood’s rock-solid, glitch-free command of Bartók’s chamber works with violin (minus the sonatas), it’s hard to believe that this music ever was considered difficult to play, or for that matter, to listen to. In fact, the souped-up engineering supersizes Wood and his equally proficient pianist David Riley to larger than life specifications, buoyed by cushy reverberation that does the listening for you. If you think an ambience suited to Bruckner symphonies also works for intimate chamber pieces, you’ll go wild for this disc. I have to admit that I’ve rarely heard Contrasts for violin, clarinet, and piano played to such chilling effect, especially in light of Ricardo Morales’ suave, transcendent clarinet mastery. Yet, as the critical cliché goes, something’s missing.
Simply turn to the recent recording with violinist Laurent Korcia, clarinetist Michel Portal, and pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, and listen to the last movement. All of a sudden, the violin’s double-stops come alive with bluesy slides and inflections, the clarinet asserts itself with a wide variety of vibrato and accented attacks, and the piano runs don’t get buried in loud tuttis. Here’s all the intimate give and take and spontaneous repartée of the classic premiere recording with Joseph Szigeti, Benny Goodman, and the composer at the piano, but in modern sound. That said, I have no doubt that connoisseurs of world-class instrumental marksmanship will embrace Wood and company’s “über-Bártók” for what it is, and will crank up their home theater systems accordingly.
