All Reviews articles – Page 187
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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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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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ArticleSchubert: String Quintet in C major D956, Overture in C minor D8 (arr. Geringas)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Acies Quartet, David Geringas (cello) Composer: SchubertIt would be easy to overlook yet another performance of the great C major Quintet, but it would be a mistake to do so. The young Acies Quartet from Austria, eight years old at the ...
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ArticleSchubert: Arpeggione Sonata D821, Lieder
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Antoine Tamestit (viola) Sandrine Piau (soprano) Markus Hadulla (piano)Composer: Schubert This recording celebrates the viola as a singing instrument in music by one of the most lyrical of all composers. Its cornerstones are haunting readings of the ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata and ...
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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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ArticleBull: Violin Concerto in A major, Concerto fantastico, The Herdgirl’s Sunday, La melancolie (arr. Halvorsen/Plagge), La verbena de San Juan, A Mountain Vision
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Annar Follesø (violin) Norwegian Radio Orchestra/Ole Kristian RuudComposer: BullOle Bull aimed to out-Paganini Paganini, and in his lifetime he pretty much succeeded, as the plaudits of Schumann and Joachim in the comprehensive notes for this CD suggest. Certainly the combination of extravagant, ...
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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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ArticleBurgon: Viola Concerto ‘Ghosts of the Dance’, Cello Concerto, Merciless Beauty
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Philip Dukes (viola) Josephine Knight (cello) Sarah Connolly (mezzo) City of London Sinfonia/Rumon GambaComposer: BurgonThanks to Geoffrey Burgon’s highly successfully career in film and television soundtracks, his concert music sits comfortably among those composers working in a modern tonality. Both concertos are ...
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ArticleSabrina-Vivian Höpcker (violin) Northwest German Philharmonic/Edwin Outwater, Göttingen Symphony Orchestra/Martin Brauß
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Bruch: Scottish Fantasy op.64. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor op.64Composer: Bruch, MendelssohnAlthough Sabrina-Vivian Höpcker has established a place for herself among today’s gifted young German violinists, I cannot understand why at this early stage in her career she has brought this ...
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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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ArticleCello Quartet – original works by Matz, Laboccetta, Golterman, Paque, Corrette, Grützmacher, Fitzenhagen, Wagenseil, Pahissa, Morera, Huguet & Casals
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Tritton Cello Ensemble Composer: Matz, Laboccetta, Golterman, Paque, Corrette, Grützmacher, Fitzenhagen, Wagenseil, Pahissa, Morera, Huguet & CasalsIt’s a pity that the Tritton Cello Ensemble, which boasts three Stradivari and one Gagliano, has largely restricted itself to original quartet works for this disc, ...
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ArticleCorigliano: Violin Concerto ‘The Red Violin’, Phantasmagoria – Suite from ‘The Ghosts of Versailles’
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Michael Ludwig (violin) Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra/JoAnn FallettaComposer: Corigliano This disc plunges you with carefree abandon into the highly coloured and expressive world of Corigliano. After the expertly performed suite from the composer’s opera The Ghosts of Versailles comes the ...
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ArticleSainsbury: Violin Concerto haydn. Wood: Violin Concerto*
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Lorraine McAslan (violin) BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth, Gavin Sutherland*Composer: Sainsbury, Wood Following on from her outstanding account of York Bowen’s Violin Concerto for Dutton with the late, much-missed Vernon Handley, Lorraine McAslan once again proves a highly persuasive ...
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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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ArticleBach: Sonatas and Partitas BWV1004–06
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Isabelle Faust (violin) Composer: BachThere is only one thing wrong with this beautiful CD, which is that half of Bach’s solo Sonatas and Partitas are missing. It is a situation that will surely be soon rectified with a second recording, ...
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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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ArticleYsaÿe: Trio for two violins and viola*, String Trios nos 1 & 2†
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Tor Johan Bøen*† , Anders Nilsson* (violin) Are Sandbakken*, Juliet Jopling† (viola) Johannes Martens† (cello)Composer: YsaÿeIt has taken several years of research into manuscripts and sketches to arrive at the performing versions of Eugène Ysaÿe’s string trios used in these ...
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ArticleFauré: Violin sonatas no.1 in A major op.13 & no.2 in E minor op.108, Berceuse, Romance, Andante
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Olivier Thouin (violin) François Zeitouni (piano)Composer: FauréCanadian-born virtuoso Olivier Thouin, currently associate concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, possesses the ideal sound for Fauré’s endlessly supple, elegant writing. Even compared to such distinguished rivals in these timeless scores as Augustin ...
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ArticlePaganini: Caprices op.1 (arr. Zinn)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Wihan QuartetComposer: PaganiniWilliam Zinn’s arrangements transform Paganini’s solo violin caprices into string quartets with fascinating, yet questionable outcomes; for Zinn has freely added his own material, whether as introductory bars (for no.24), harmonic, registral or articulation changes, ornamental elaborations, or harmonic and ...
