Vengerov is, uncontroversially, one of the best violinists in the world. At his dazzling Wigmore Hall debut, when he was 17, the foyer was cluttered with violin-cases; the London music schools already knew about him, and their violin students were there in force. (In my review, I wrote that it was sad to think how many of them were going to go home and shoot themselves – but our tender-hearted subeditor refused to print that.) Vengerov played not only a full programme, but also a whole string of brilliant encores, for the audience seemed ready to stay all night.
Last week, the Barbican Hall was packed out for his latest recital: Mozart, Beethoven, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, a prototypical Vengerov menu. Warm applause, but he had scarcely finished a first encore when half the audience began to get up to go home. There were no more encores, though he and his accompanist took several bows. He had been playing perfectly, so to speak; I was puzzled. At 36, he has put on a little weight, and perhaps his main work – Prokofiev’s spikey F minor Sonata, op.80 – was not altogether audience-friendly; still, he might have expected a more generous response.
The little Mozart Adagio with which he began served chiefly to show off his seamless legato. His Beethoven sonata, the C minor one from op. 30, got a sober and thoughtful performance, rising to more vivid effect with the scherzo and final Allegro. After the interval, he and his partner got their teeth properly into the Prokofiev sonata: the eerie “wind in a graveyard” (the composer’s own phrase) in the first and last movements, the rough Allegro brusco, the muted, romantic Andante and the whirling finale. Vintage Vengerov, hard to match; and then 10 of Shostakovich’s odd, quirky Preludes from his op. 34 for solo piano, as arranged for the violin – to the composer’s delight – by his friend Dmitri Tziganov. Those were brilliant little squibs, in a sequence of sharp and sudden contrasts, and Vengerov plainly delighted in them. There was a respectable ovation – and then, without further ado, people began to leave. ★★★★☆
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