Mozart: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 3 / Capucon

Renaud Capuçon, Antoine Tamestit / Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Louis Langrée

Mozart: Violin Concerto No.1 K.207 in B flat major; Violin Concerto No.3 K.206 in G major; Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola & Orchestra K.364 in E flat major

The violinist Renaud Capuçon has a substantial catalogue on Virgin Classics, but this is only the second CD to focus on him in solo concertos – the first, the Mendelssohn and Schumann concertos was released in 2004. That being said, he has recorded L’arbre des songes, a de facto concerto, for a disc of works by the contemporary composer Dutilleux, and has also collaborated with Martha Argerich and Mischa Maisky in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for EMI Classics, and, back on Virgin Classics, with his brother, Gautier in Brahms’ Double Concerto. This new release sees him in two of Mozart’s solo concertos and the Sinfonia concertante with viola-player Antoine Tamestit, another outstanding French instrumentalist of the younger generation. (Interestingly, Renaud has on occasion performed the Sinfonia concertante with his brother in an arrangement for violin and cello.) Another Frenchman conducts the programme, Louis Langrée, who has been Music Director of the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York since 2002. “Working with Louis Langrée is a particular privilege,” says Renaud. “His Mozart has honesty, purity and joie de vivre ... grace, in fact. He makes a marvellous guide for me, since I am less familiar than he is with Mozart. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra guides me too ... The players’ finesse of articulation and their colours are drawn from chamber music ... This simplicity of approach is essential for me.” Capuçon, Tamestit, Langrée and the SCO performed the Sinfonia concertante in St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh in May last year, with The Guardian praising Capuçon’s “silvery tone”. In 2007 the same newspaper, reviewing him in the two solo concertos on this new recording, said: “Mozart's violin concertos are harder to play than they sound; the challenge lies in making them sound effortless without rendering them facile. Capuçon, with his sweet-toned but deceptively powerful playing negotiated this balance successfully. His playing was brilliant in the bravura passages without sounding like showmanship, while the slow movements, particularly of the G major Third Concerto, were spun out with unerring lyricism.”

Price: $19.98