All Reviews articles – Page 189
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ArticleKreutzer: Violin Concertos nos.17 in G major, 18 in E minor & 19 in D minor
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: Axel Strauss (violin) San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra/Andrew MogreliaComposer: KreutzerKreutzer’s place in violin pedagogy is well known, and listeners to these concertos can entertain themselves by spotting melodies from his famous 42 Etudes of 1802. Nonetheless, these are fully formed works in their ...
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ArticleBeethoven: String Quartet in E flat op.74 ‘Harp’. Nordheim: String Quartet 1956. Bartók: String Quartet no.3
The Strad Issue: January 2011Musicians: EngegŠrd QuartetComposer: Beethoven, Nordheim, BartókThis CD’s booklet explains 2L’s philosophy of using spacious venues where the engineers can create the most intimate recordings free of the confines created by walls. It is indeed a tangible feature of these performances that they seem ...
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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 ...
