All Reviews articles – Page 179
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ArticleHalvorsen: Orchestral Works vol.2: Three Norwegian Dances*, Air norvégien op.7*, Chant de la Veslemöy*, Suite ancienne op.31a, Symphony no.2 ‘Fatum’
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Marianne Thorsen (violin)* Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme JärviComposer: HalvorsenBefore he was a composer, Johan Halvorsen was a virtuoso violinist, and his works for violin and orchestra are wonderfully written for the instrument. His music, like that of his friend Grieg, is steeped in ...
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ArticleSchoenberg: String Trio op.45. Webern: String trio op.20, Movement for String Trio op. posth. Schnittke: String Trio
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Goeyvaerts TrioComposer: Schoenberg, Webern, SchnittkeThis recording includes a short talk by Schoenberg (in English), originally broadcast along with a performance of his Trio in 1949, concerning attention to detail by performers and listeners – a potential hostage to fortune for the Goeyvaerts ...
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ArticleYsaÿe: 6 Sonatas for solo violin op.27
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Samika Honda (violin)Composer: YsaÿeThe set of six solo Sonatas op.27 is the only work of Ysaÿe’s to have won a place in the regular performing repertoire. The first four are dedicated to legendary colleagues – Szigeti, Thibaud, Enescu and Kreisler, no less ...
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ArticleG. Coates: String Quartet no.9, Sonata for Violin Solo, Lyric Suite ‘Split the Lark – and you’ll find the Music’
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Kreutzer Quartet, Roderick Chadwick (piano)Composer: G. CoatesGloria Coates (b.1938) writes music that is as close to surrealism as any I know. An American composer who has lived in Munich since 1969, she uses simple, often straightforwardly diatonic elements, yet twists them into ...
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ArticleTchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major. Tartini: Sonata ‘Didone abbandonata’, Variations on a Theme by Corelli. Vivaldi: Violin Sonata in D major. Kreisler: Schön Rosmarin, Caprice viennois. Brahms:
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Erica Morini (violin) Michael Raucheisen (piano) RIAS Symphony Orchestra/Ferenc FricsayComposer: Tchaikovsky, Tartini, Vivaldi, Kreisler, Brahms, WieniawskiHere is a portrait of the marvellous Erica Morini (1904–95) as she was in Berlin in 1952. She is playing favourite music, starting with a live Tchaikovsky ...
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ArticleHendrix: Have you ever been…? Balakrishnan: Tree of Life
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Turtle Island QuartetComposer: Hendrix, Balakrishnan The Turtle Island Quartet has previously tackled Coltrane, Gillespie and Brubeck. This time it’s Jimi Hendrix who gets the Turtle treatment.It’s a brave quartet that tackles something as iconically electric as, say, Voodoo Child. Though ...
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ArticleSeasons... Dreams... Works by Beethoven, Debussy, Duke, Fauré, Gershwin, Gruber, Kosma, Pritske & Wagner
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Anne Akiko Meyers (violin) Reiko Uchida (piano) Emmanuel Ceysson (harp) Composer: Beethoven, Debussy, Duke, Fauré, Gershwin, Gruber, Kosma, Pritske & Wagner After beginning with a bang 22 years ago, Anne Akiko Meyers’s recording career seems to have retreated into the mood-music market. ...
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ArticleBuxtehude: Opera Omnia XII: Sonatas from Manuscript Sources
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Catherine Manson, David Rabinovich (violin) Jonathan Manson (viola da gamba) Christine Sticher (violone) Tom Koopman (harpsichord/organ) Mike Fentross (lute)Composer: BuxtehudeThis twelfth volume of a project to record Buxtehude’s complete works features sonatas from manuscript sources. Composed for various instrumental combinations, these synthesise ...
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ArticleSzymanowski: Complete works for violin and piano
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Stawomir Tomasik (violin) Robert Morawski (piano)Composer: SzymanowskiKarol Szymanowski, whose creative style was forged initially from the folk music of his native Tatra Mountains, was one of the most enigmatically individual of early 20th-century composers. This fine collection usefully brings together everything he ...
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ArticleTchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major. Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Susanna Yoko Henkel (violin) Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra/Jonathan DarlingtonComposer: Tchaikovsky, Vaughan WilliamsListening once again to the Tchaikovsky Concerto’s impassioned flow of spontaneous invention, it seems more bizarre than ever that it is was this of all pieces that the pro-Brahms Viennese critic Eduard ...
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ArticleTouchable Dreams
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Steve Bingham (violin/five-string electric violin/octave electric violin/treble recorder/thumb piano/rainsticks) Jeremy Harmer (voice) Composer: VariousThis is more an event than a CD. Steve Bingham multi-tracks his instruments in an eclectic range of music while Jeremy Harmer reads poetry. One can imagine it performed ...
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ArticleRussian music for cello and piano. Miaskovsky: Cello Sonata no 2 in A minor op.81. Scriabin: Etude op.8 no.11 (arr Piatigorsky). Prokofiev: Adagio op.97b. Schnittke: Musica nostalgica. Rachmaninoff: C
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Wendy Warner (cello) Irina Nuzova (piano)Composer: Miaskovsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Schnittke, RachmaninoffWendy Warner and Irina Nuzova confirm themselves as high-ranking artists with this excellently recorded and produced CD of Russian music. Their attractive programme is particularly notable for featuring the lesser-known ...
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ArticleStill: Danzas de Panama. Dvorák: String Quartet in F major op.96 ‘American’. Barber: String Quartet in B minor op.11. Gershwin: Lullaby
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Serafin QuartetComposer: Still, Dvorák, Barber, Gershwin This disc of (almost entirely) American music opens with an attractive set of dances by William Grant Still, straightforward, lively pieces, played in good café-music style by the Serafin Quartet, lilting and swinging, with ...
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ArticleKreutzer Time. Beethoven: Violin Sonata in A minor op.47 ‘Kreutzer’. Kreutzer: Violin Sonata. Ries: Violin Sonata in C sharp minor op.71
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Davide Amodio (violin) Edoardo Torbianelli (piano)Composer: Beetrhoven, Kreutzer, RiesDavide Amodio plays on a gut-strung 1793 F. Pique violin for this reading of Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, partnered by Edoardo Torbianelli on an 1823 Iakesh fortepiano. In the accompanying notes, Amodio avows that they ...
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ArticleBrahms: Violin Concerto in D major op.77. Bruch: Violin Concerto no.1 in G minor op.26
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2009Musicians: Sarah Chang (violin) Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra/Kurt MasurComposer: Brahms, Bruch Although both of these performances reflect credit on all concerned, it is my impression that the Bruch is rather special, while the Brahms is just another excellent Brahms. ...
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ArticleSzymanowski: Violin Concerto no.1 op.35, Symphony no.3 ‘The Song of the Night’
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Christian Tetzlaff (violin) Steve Davislim (tenor) Vienna Singverein, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra/Pierre BoulezComposer: Szymanowski With a conductor as brilliantly analytical as Pierre Boulez in charge of Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto it would be easy to get swept up in the orchestral ...
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ArticleTchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major op.35. Bruch: Violin Concerto no.1 in G minor op.26
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Nicola Benedetti (violin) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Jakub Hr?ša Composer: Tchaikovsky, BruchNicola Benedetti comes of age with a coupling that, in terms of its heartfelt lyricism and intonational purity, can hold its own with the best the catalogue has to offer. Those who ...
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ArticleGe Gan-Ru: Fall of Baghdad: String Quartets no.1 ‘Fu’, no.4 ‘Angel Suite’ & no.5 ‘Fall of Baghdad’
The Strad Issue: January 2009Musicians: ModernWorks Composer: Ge Gan-RuGe Gan-Ru was born in Shanghai in 1954, and studied violin at the city’s university before switching to composition, later completing a doctorate at Columbia University in the US. His affinity for string music is immediately clear ...
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ArticleGrieg: Violin Sonatas no.1 in F major op.8, no.2 in G major op.13 & no.3 in C minor op.45
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Alexandra Soumm (violin) David Kadouch (piano)Composer: GriegYouth and vitality pour forth from these delicious recordings of the Grieg sonatas by Moscow-born violinist Alexandra Soumm and French pianist David Kadouch, both in their mid-twenties. Never a note or a gesture is ...
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ArticleJanácek: String Quartets no.1 ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ & no.2 ‘Intimate Letters’ (in two versions, with viola and with viola d’amore)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Mandelring Quartet, Gunter Teuffel (viola d’amore)Composer: JanácekThis would count as a desirable disc of Janá?ek’s quartets even without its added extra. And quite an extra it is: a second performance of the Second Quartet with a viola d’amore replacing the viola. The ...
