Book reviews – Page 183
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ArticleSchulhoff: String Quartets nos.1 & 2, Five Pieces
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Aviv QuartetComposer: SchulhoffThe three works here all date from the mid-1920s and epitomise the quirky, engaging music of the Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff (1894–1942), sometime Dadaist, Expressionist, neo-Classicist, late-Romantic... his labels were many, varied and self-contradictory. There are hints of Bartók and ...
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ArticleSchumann: Cello Concerto in A minor op.129, Abendlied op.85 no.12 (two performances, arr. P. Bruns & arr. Casals). Volkmann: Cello Concerto in A minor op.33, Andante and Variations for three cellos, T
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Peter Bruns (cello) Annegret Kuttner (piano) Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, Leipzig/Jürgen BrunsComposer: Schumann, VolkmannJuxtaposing a great composer with a neglected contemporary is seldom good for the latter. Here, fellow German Robert Volkmann’s phrasing and harmonies seem all the more predictable when compared with ...
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ArticleWieniawski: Violin Concertos no.1 in F sharp minor op.14 and no.2 in D minor op.22*
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Mariusz Patyra (violin) Sinfonia Varsovia/Johannes Wildner, Sinfonia Iuventus/Gabriel Chmura*Composer: WieniawskiWhile Wieniawski’s Second Violin Concerto of 1870 is justly known as a masterpiece, the First, composed in a hurry in 1853 when he was only 18, is less frequently heard. Nonetheless, it shows ...
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ArticleBach: Violin Concertos in A minor BWV1041 & E major BWV1042, Concerto in D minor for Two Violins BWV1043*, Concerto in D minor for Oboe & Violin BWV1060a
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Rut Ingólfsdóttir, Unnar Maria Ingólfsdóttir* (violin) Daði Kolbeinsson (oboe) Reykjavik Chamber OrchestraComposer: Bach Rut Ingólfsdóttir plays all Bach’s concertos with an elegant, sweet tone, her vibrato, while understated, hanging in the air in this somewhat reverberant acoustic. There is a minimum ...
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ArticleWoodbox Beats & Balladry
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Daniel Bernard Roumain (violin)Composer: Various Haitian–American composer–violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) uses four-, five- and six-string violins as part of his innovative, electro-fuelled sound world. The album opens with turntabling and a sassy beat, progressing stylistically through break-beats, acoustic ballads ...
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ArticleXenakis: Tetras, Ergma. Lachenmann: Gran torso. Kurtág: Aus der Ferne III. Janácek: Adagio – Con moto from String Quartet no.1
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Danel QuartetComposer: Xenakis, Lachenmann, Kurtág, Janácek This laudable new release from the Brussels-based Danel Quartet features incisive performances of some pretty hardcore avant-garde repertoire in a live concert recording captured at the 2005 Milano Musica Festival. The two Xenakis ...
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ArticleDvorák: String Quartets in C major op.61 & F major op.96 ‘American’
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Wihan Quartet Composer: Dvorák These 2004 recordings, previously available only from the Wihan Quartet website, come a long way after the group’s splendid coupling of Dvo?ák’s op.51 and op.106 and do not quite fulfil the promise of those 1996–97 performances.It is traditional ...
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ArticleGlazunov: Violin Concerto in A minor op.82. Dvorák: Violin Concerto in A minor op.53. Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major op.35*
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Nathan Milstein (violin) Pittsburgh Symphony/William Steinberg, Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Frederick Stock*Composer: Glazunov, Dvorák, TchaikovskyNathan Milstein had special insights into the Glazunov Concerto, having performed it several times either with or in front of the composer. This, the middle of his three recordings and ...
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ArticleHerzogenberg: String Quintet in C minor op.77, String Quartet no.1 in D minor op.18
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Minguet Quartet, Peter Langgartner (viola) Composer: HerzogenbergHeinrich von Herzogenberg (1943–1900) modelled most of his chamber works on those of his close friend, Brahms, absorbing virtues such as their symphonic breadth, formal clarity, powerful rhetoric and intense harmonic language. The members of the ...
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ArticleAll Dressed in Yellow
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Fiddlers’ Bid: Andrew Gifford, Kevin Henderson, Maurice Henderson, Chris Stout (fiddle) Catriona McKay (clarsach, piano) Jonathan Ritch (bass) Fionan de Barra (guitar) These Shetlanders have proved themselves masters at bridging their own folk tradition with fiddle music from beyond their islands, and ...
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ArticleKreutzer: Violin Concertos no.15 in A major, no.18 in E minor & no.19 in D minor
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (violin) SWR Radio Orchestra Kaiserslautern/Alun FrancisComposer: KreutzerRodolphe Kreutzer (1766–1831) is best known for his 42 Études. Along with Paris Conservatoire colleagues Rode and Baillot, he was a protégé of Viotti, which is reflected in these concertos. All three works ...
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ArticleMendelssohn: String Quartets in D major op.44 no.1 & E flat major op.‘0’, Tema con variazioni op.81 no.1, Scherzo op.81 no.2
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: New Zealand Quartet Composer: MendelssohnIn their third and final volume of Mendelssohn’s music for string quartet, the New Zealand musicians continue their deeply considered and very serious approach, underlining the drama in the opening movement of the D major Quartet by ...
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ArticleProkofiev: Six pieces from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (transcr. Borisovsky). Shostakovich: Seven Preludes op.34 (transcr. Strakhov), Viola Sonata op.147
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Robin Ireland (viola) Tim Horton (piano) Composer: Prokofiev, ShostakovichThere have already been several recording of Vadim Borisovsky’s tremendously effective arrangement for viola and piano of music from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet. Robin Ireland includes the complete first set of six ...
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ArticleQSF Plays Brubeck
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Quartet San FranciscoComposer: Brubeck This is hugely enjoyable. With his sophisticated, classically trained approach and unusual time signatures, Dave Brubeck translates well to a string quartet. You lose a lot of instrumental contrast, of course, but the losses are mostly ...
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ArticleThe Versatile Viol vol.2. Leclair: Sonatas in A minor op.5 no.7, D major op.5 no.8, E minor op.9 no.2, F sharp minor op.9 no.10 & G major op.5 no.12
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Tina Chancey (pardessus de viole) Susie Napper (basse de viole) Webb Wiggins (harpsichord)Composer: Leclair In this second disc in her series championing the range and versatility of the viol family Tina Chancey gives persuasive accounts of five of Leclair’s violin ...
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ArticleBach: Partitas no.2 in D minor BWV1004 & no.3 in E major BWV1006
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Marie Cantagrill (violin)Composer: Bach Even the most enlightened players do not always entirely succeed in throwing off the vestiges of the 19th-century virtuoso tradition in these endlessly challenging pieces. Enter Marie Cantagrill, former winner of the Vieuxtemps Competition, who plays ...
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ArticleFuse
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Fuse: Linzi Stoppard, Ben Lee (electric violin)Composer: VariousFuse is the debut album by this duo of self-professed stadium-rock wannabes. Presenting faithful reproductions of rock classics, the emphasis is on concept rather than content: namely, ‘proving that the electric violin can be as ...
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ArticleCatoire: Violin Sonata no.1 op.15, Poème op.20 (Sonata no.2), Elégie op.26, Romanze op.1 no.4
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Laurent Albrecht Breuninger (violin) Anna Zassimova (piano)Composer: CatoireGeorgy Catoire was Russia’s answer to the young Gabriel Fauré – a composer of exquisite taste rarely given to wearing his heart on his sleeve, yet whose work possesses a tenderness and rapture that continually ...
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ArticleBrahms: Violin Sonatas no.1–3
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin) Lambert Orkis (piano)Composer: BrahmsIn the CD booklet Anne-Sophie Mutter dates her love of Brahms’s violin sonatas back to a performance she heard of them given by David Oistrakh when she was five. She has waited until now to record ...
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ArticleBritten: String Quartets nos.2 & 3, Three Divertimenti
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Elias QuartetComposer: Britten It is a curious fact that the closer Britten’s instrumental writing approximates to the world of his vocal music the happier it invariably sounds. Conversely, the more he attempts to emulate Beethovenian thematicism, the less comfortable ...
