All Reviews articles – Page 203
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ArticleFeldman: The Viola in My Life I-IV
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Marek Konstantinowicz (viola) Cikada Ensemble, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Christian Eggen (conductor)Composer: Feldman The comparison is often made between Morton Feldman’s large spaces of sound nearing silence and the washy canvases of his friend Mark Rothko, but the ...
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ArticleLudi fecundus
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Stephen Nachmanovitch (electric violin)Composer: Nachmanovitch ‘Ludi fecundus’ – Latin for ‘fertile play’ or ‘the game that creates the world’– comprises short improvisations inspired by creation myths. Stephen Nachmanovitch, a published author and lecturer in improvisation across the arts, has ...
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ArticleLiquid Metal Dreaming
Musicians: Laurie Scott Baker (double bass/electric upright bass/percussion) Robert Evans (crwth, tambura, lyre, fiddle, voice)Composer: VariousThe prospect of listening to over an hour of double bass music (adorned with an unlikely array of percussion, lyres and vocal harmonics), played entirely on open strings or using natural harmonics, filled ...
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ArticleLachenmann: Gran Torso, Reigen der Seliger Geister, Grido
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Arditti String QuartetComposer: Lachenmann True to form, Helmut Lachenmann treats not only the players but their instruments as physical, living bodies. These pieces of wood breathe, chatter, fart, snore and sigh in a soap opera of musical personalities scraping ...
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ArticleDutilleux: Violin Concerto ‘L’arbre des songes’. Debussy: La mer. Ravel: La valse
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Dmitry Sitkovetsky (violin) Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Mariss Jansons (conductor)Composer: Dutilleux, Debussy, Ravel Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto L’arbre des songes has been quite well served on disc since Isaac Stern gave the world premiere in 1985. This latest recording demonstrates ...
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ArticleMartinu: Suite concertante (first & second versions), Rhapsody–Concerto
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Bohuslav Matoušek (violin/viola) Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Christopher Hogwood (conductor)Composer: Martinu Martinu is a composer whose versatility never ceases to surprise, even though (like Hindemith) he is sometimes unfairly spurned as being over-productive, stylistically disparate and lacking the distinct idiom of ...
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ArticleThe Violin Virtuoso Collection. Works by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Bloch, Saint-Saëns & Paganini
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Franco Mezzena (violin) Maria Conti Gallenti (piano)Composer: Sarasate, Wieniawski, Bloch, Saint-Saëns & PaganiniTo present an album of virtuoso showstoppers by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Saint-Saëns et al – especially one with such well-worn favourites as the Carmen Fantasy, Scherzo–Tarantelle and Havanaise – is to ...
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ArticleBaltzar: Complete works for unaccompanied violin
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Patrick Wood (violin)Composer: Baltzar British violin playing displayed few indigenous traits in the 17th century. It was influenced instead by Lullian French court music and foreign violinists such as German-born Thomas Baltzar (c.1631–63), who arrived in England (1656), ...
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ArticleTrio Arc
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Mario Pavone (double bass) Paul Bley (piano) Matt Wilson (drums)Composer: Various Mario Pavone and Paul Bley rekindle an old flame in this first collaboration for over 35 years, a free improvisation session with drummer Matt Wilson. The disc opens ...
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ArticleKlassik Meets Jazz. Works by Gerd Noack, Oliver Nelson, Berndt Luef, Iván Eröd, Gerhard Präsent, Hannes Kuegerl & Georg Arányi-Aschner
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: ALEA Quartet, Berndt Luef (vibraphone)Composer: Gerd Noack, Oliver Nelson, Berndt Luef, Iván Eröd, Gerhard Präsent, Hannes Kuegerl & Georg Arányi-Aschner‘Klassik meets Jazz’ could as well be called ‘String Quartet meets Vibraphone’. The pieces involving Berndt Luef are of the easy-listening variety: two ...
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ArticleRuth Posselt: American Violinist. Works by Bloch, Hill, Hindemith, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, Arbos, Khachaturian, Tchaikovsky & Barber
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Ruth Posselt (violin) Allan Sly (piano) Boston Symphony Orchestra, Serge Koussevitzky (conductor) plus other orchestras & conductorsComposer: Bloch, Hill, Hindemith, Villa-Lobos, Prokofiev, Arbos, Khachaturian, Tchaikovsky & BarberThe Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) audience, before whom Ruth Posselt (1911–2007) appeared a record 64 times, ...
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ArticleAmerican Fantasies. Works by Schoenberg, Cage, Schuller, Harris, Kirchner & Coulthardt
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Hasse Borup (violin) Mary Kathleen Ernst (piano) Composer: Schoenberg, Cage, Schuller, Harris, Kirchner & Coulthardt It is something of an irony that at a time when contemporary musical techniques have reached unprecedented levels of subtlety and insight, Schoenberg’s serial work is ...
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ArticleSchubert: Quartettsatz in C minor D703, String Quintet in C major D956
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Artemis Quartet, Truls Mørk (cello)Composer: Schubert These are performances of great musical certainty. They have clearly been thought through in minute detail and have emerged as readings of character and confidence. A little too much so, perhaps, for ...
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ArticleGlazunov: Violin Concerto in A minor op.82. Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major op.35, Souvenir d’un lieu cher op.42 (arr. Glazunov)
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Vadim Gluzman (violin) Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Andrew Litton (conductor)Composer: Glazunov, Tchaikovsky Vadim Gluzman’s honeyed tone in the opening movement of the Glazunov Concerto transports us back to the days of David Oistrakh, recreating that innate Russian musicality of a previous generation. Yet ...
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ArticleBrahms and his Contemporaries, vol.2. Strauss: Cello Sonata in F major op.6. von Herzogenberg: Cello Sonata no.3. Brahms: Cello Sonata no.1 in E minor op.38
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Johannes Moser (cello) Paul Rivinius (piano)Composer: Strauss, von Herzogenberg, BrahmsOccasionally history deals composers an unfair hand. To some extent Heinrich von Herzogenberg comes into this category; certainly his strongest works such as the Second Piano Trio and First Cello Sonata are not ...
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ArticleBrahms: Clarinet Trio in A minor op.34 (viola version), Two Songs op.91, Viola Sonatas in F minor op.120 no.1 & in E flat major op.120 no.2
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Thomas Riebl (viola) Gustav Rivinius (cello) Michelle Breedt (contralto) Silke Avenhaus (piano)Composer: Brahms We are in danger of hearing Brahms’s Clarinet Trio more often on viola than on the wind instrument, but if all contenders are as ...
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ArticleSaint-Saëns: Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor. Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme. Schumann: Cello Concerto in A minor
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Andreas Brantelid (cello) Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Schønwandt (conductor)Composer: Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, SchumannTwenty-year-old Swedish cellist Andreas Brantelid is already in the public eye after winning both the 2006 Eurovision Young Musicians Competition and the 2007 Paulo International Cello Competition. Now EMI ...
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ArticlePaganini's Twenty-Four Caprices op.1
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Janusz Wawrowski (violin)Composer: PaganiniAny violinist who can commit the challenging bravura of Paganini’s caprices to CD with substantial accuracy, clarity and technical aplomb is worthy of praise. But Polish violinist Janusz Wawrowski goes one step further, performing these benchmarks for the aspiring ...
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ArticleShostakovich: Piano Trios no.1 in C minor op.8 & no.2 in E minor op.67, Piano Quintet in G minor op.57
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: London Mozart Trio, London Mozart Chamber Ensemble Composer: ShostakovichShostakovich’s chamber music is well represented in the catalogue, but certain interpreters outshine others in prising out the ironies and ambiguities that often underlie. Best here is the pre-war Piano ...
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ArticleElgar: Cello Concerto in E minor op.85. Myaskovsky: Cello Concerto in C minor op.66
The Strad Issue: January 2008Musicians: Jamie Walton (cello) Philharmonia Orchestra, Alexander Briger (conductor)Composer: Elgar, Myaskovsky Young British cellist Jamie Walton has already recorded Saint-Saens’s concertos with the Philharmonia and Alexander Briger. Now two years on he turns to two more introspective works: Elgar’s ...
