Geneva Lewis: Barber, Zorn, Glass album review – virtuosity and warmth

A former BBC New Generation Artist, violinist Geneva Lewis has chosen an all-American program for her Delos recording debut. She’s accompanied with palpable empathy by fellow New Zealander Gemma New conducting the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Samuel Barber’s concerto receives an airy, poetic reading with Lewis and New embracing the music’s lyrical pastoralism while pointing up the opening movement’s scotch snap. The ongoing Celtic motif is seized upon by the orchestra and pays off in a moto perpetuo conclusion that feels second cousin to a highland fling. Lewis’s tone is warm and full of feeling, aching in the allegro and andante, feisty and folkish in the finale.

John Zorn’s Partita for the Firebird is a modernist take on a baroque suite (including a catchy courante that channels a hoedown) with subtle allusions to Stravinsky’s ballet. Lewis’s virtuosity is on full display with laser-focused double stopping and filigree pianissimos at the very top of the instrument.

Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No 1, written in memory of his father, was his first major work for standard symphony orchestra. Slightly viscous orchestral textures and resonant engineering make it harder for the soloist to make a mark, but New leads an exhilarating account and Lewis’s silvery tone is especially haunting in the pensive slow movement.