The pairing of the Philip Glass "Violin Concerto" and the "Violin Concerto in D major" of Stravinsky here wasn't planned as a set program: the two works were recorded at different times, with different orchestras, although violinist David Nebel and conductor Kristjan Järvi are common to both. It may be that Sony's motivation was to package recent performances by rising violinist Nebel. They seem an odd pairing, the broad simplicity of Glass and the dryness of Stravinsky, and yet somehow they play well together here. Perhaps it's that both works have superficially classical surfaces yet are up to something else. Glass, who is increasingly being heard on programs without an American in sight, wrote this concerto in 1987; it was his first large-scale purely orchestral work, but it followed on his operatic trilogy and applied lessons learned from those works, with simple strokes that stick in one's head. Nebel does well in the genuinely exuberant finale. He also captures the odd mix of moods in Stravinsky's rather uncommon concerto. The strange chord that recurs cyclically, giving way to conventional neoclassic fare that somehow doesn't quite believe in what it is doing, and the uncharacteristic lyricism of the two Aria movements, especially the second. With Nebel looking like a star, this may be a strong pick for both these infrequently recorded works.
