The Strad Recommends: Hans Christian Aavik: Bruch

THE STRAD RECOMMENDS

The Strad Issue: August 2025

Description: A competition winner shows his mettle in highly contrasting works

Musicians: Hans Christian Aavik (violin) Odense Symphony Orchestra/Gemma New

Works: Bruch: Violin Concerto no.1 TÜÜR Violin Concerto no.2 ‘Angel’s Share’

Catalogue number: Orchid Classics ORC100380

Max Bruch and Erkki-Sven Tüür make for somewhat eyebrow-raising CD stablemates. And it’s probably not too unfair to suggest that young Estonian violinist Hans Christian Aavik – winner of the 2022 Carl Nielsen Competition – is out to demonstrate his versatility and breadth of passion in his debut orchestral recording. In fact, he manages just that, bringing a similar sense of commitment, connection and insight to the wildly contrasting pair of pieces, as well as a microscopic level of detail and nuance that brings their storytelling vividly alive.

The Bruch Concerto’s opening movement, for example, can seldom have sounded more fresh and spontaneous, as though Aavik were an actor delivering a soliloquy, minutely adjusting vibrato, dynamics, articulation and phrasing to navigate the music’s inner moods and ideas. His fragile, veiled tone in a plaintive second movement is beguiling, and he stresses the finale’s off-kilter rhythms and angular shapes to compelling effect. It’s a performance full of character, extrovert without being over-emphatic, and sonically exquisite.

Tüür’s Angel’s Share contrasts icy stillness with eruptions of frantic energy, and Aavik finds a strange, sensual beauty in both: raw and austere in the former or richer and more exuberant in the latter. He brings a clear sense of purpose to the concerto’s sometimes enigmatic utterances, and is even convincing in its somewhat baffling rustic folk dance of a conclusion. There’s vivid support from the Odense players and warm, focused recorded sound.

DAVID KETTLE