Gil Shaham, Eric Jacobsen, & the VSO: Coleridge-Taylor, Dvorák, Stewart
Canary Classics

Recorded live during the Virginia Symphony Orchestra's 2022-23 season, Gil Shaham's collaborative album with the Eric Jacobsen-conducted VSO is dominated by two complementary yet contrasting violin concertos by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Antonín Dvorák; rounding out the set is the world-premiere recording of “F. Harper" from violinist Curtis Stewart's The Famous People suite. Works of impeccable craft, imagination, and scope, the two half-hour concertos place considerable technical demands on the soloist, but Shaham never falters.

While Coleridge-Taylor and Dvorák were born in different countries and had profoundly different life experiences, they both integrated into their writing the folk traditions and dance rhythms of their respective countries and also proudly integrated elements of national character. Whereas Dvorák drew upon Slavic traditions, the African-English Coleridge-Taylor found inspiration in Negro spirituals. Stewart's connection emerges via the filtering of Dvorák through his own compositional voice, with its set-ending placement and five-minute duration making “F. Harper" a natural encore to the concertos.

Shaham deems Coleridge-Taylor's Violin Concerto in G minor (1912) an “absolute masterpiece,” and the joy he feels performing it is palpably conveyed in this rendition. It's a mature, ambitious work that blends elements of African-American folk with the formality of Romantic lyricism; hewing to the venerable fast-slow-fast format, the music is very much branded with Coleridge-Taylor's personality; it also, however, exemplifies the classical traditions of the concerto idiom and represents a continuum to those created by figures such as Brahms and, yes, Dvorák. Shaham captivates the moment he enters, his acrobatic agility and singing tone excellent fits for Coleridge-Taylor's material and, with him every step of the way, the VSO his attentive partner. Suitably dramatic, the robust allegro movement gives way to a tender andante, the orchestra's strings laying a silky stage for Shaham's entrance. With consummate poise, his tremulous, upper-register voice floats serenely over the VSO's foundation for eight mood-sustaining minutes, after which animated energy returns for a spirited closing allegro marked by scintillating runs from the violinist and romantic outpourings from the orchestra.

Repeating the structure of the opening concerto, Dvorák's Violin Concerto in A minor (1879-80) wastes no time at all in asserting itself, its opening allegro exuberant and assertive. Again the soloist is presented with a terrific vehicle for expressions of technical and interpretative artistry. Shaham's challenged mightily in being called upon to execute at a ferocious clip whilst also delivering phrases of rhapsodic beauty. Compared to the opening movement of Coleridge-Taylor's concerto, themes, folk-inflected and otherwise, are more allusively articulated in Dvorák's, which gives its material the spontaneous adventurousness of an improvisation. The orchestra and soloist entangle intricately, however, and the connection between them is powerfully demonstrated. Segueing without pause into the central movement, the music slows for an extended meditation of lyrical splendour. Emoting poetically, Shaham conveys the controlled rapture of the movement's themes and transitions fluidly between loud and soft passages. The jubilant Slavonic folk-dance dimension of the work comes to the fore during its allegro finale, the violinist bowing furiously and the orchestra amplifying the dance feel with syncopated rhythms and vitality.

May 2026