All Reviews articles – Page 219
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ArticleDeclarations: Music Between the Wars’. Janácek: String Quartet no.2 ‘Intimate Letters’. Crawford Seeger: String Quartet. Hindemith: String Quartet no.4 op.22
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Pacifica-QuartetComposer: Janácek, Crawford-Seeger, HindemithComparisons are available for all these works, but they are rendered irrelevant both by the programming and the playing, which reconstruct a sense of what it might have been like to be living through and composing music in the ...
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ArticleMozart: Violin Concertos in G major K216, in D major K218 & in A major K219
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Marianne Thorsen (violin/director) Trondheim SoloistsComposer: Mozart People who invest in expensive hi-fi have a real need for superfine recordings which are also good performances. This package, containing two discs – an ordinary CD and an SACD – with the ...
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ArticleElegy. Vivaldi: The Four Seasons. Roberts: An English Elegy, Summer Song. Elgar: Salut d’amour. Liszt (arr. Roberts): Consolation no.3. Massenet: Méditation from ‘Thais’. Barber: Adagio for Strings
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Roland Roberts (violin/director) City of Oxford Orchestra, Levon Parikian (conductor)Composer: Vivaldi, Roberts, Elgar, Liszt, Massenet, Barber The disc’s title, ‘Elegy’, refers to a recently composed work by Roland Roberts, a piece that stylistically follows in the footsteps of ...
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ArticleKarlowicz: Violin Concerto op.8, Stanislas and Anna Oswiecimowie
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Dorota Anderszewska (violin) Orchestre National de Montpellier, Friedemann Layer (conductor)Composer: Karlowicz A sustained feeling of joy and rapture pervades this richly Romantic Polish concerto: there are few clouds on the horizon. The noble, spacious opening soon ushers in a ...
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ArticleAdams: The Dharma at Big Sur; My Father Knew Charles Ives
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Tracy Silverman (electric violin) BBC Symphony Orchestra, John Adams (conductor) Composer: AdamsJohn Adams has been honest – unusually so among composers – about the sources of inspiration for two recent orchestral scores. Even so, you wouldn’t need to ...
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ArticleBlues. Works by Gershwin, Marshall, Antheil, Debussy, Joplin, Copland & Ravel
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Matthew Trusler (violin) Wayne Marshall (piano) Composer: Gershwin, Marshall, Antheil, Debussy, Joplin, Copland & Ravel On his enterprising new recording label, Matthew Trusler follows up his fine accounts of the Janá?cek, Elgar and Debussy sonatas with ...
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ArticleBeethoven: Complete works for violin and piano
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Paul Barritt (violin) James Lisney (piano)Composer: Beethoven It is unsurprising that Paul Barritt and James Lisney share a common view of Beethoven, because their richly toned, expansive interpretations are the results of a recording project extending over a ...
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ArticleJanácek: Violin Sonata. Respighi: Violin Sonata in B minor. Strauss: Violin Sonata in E flat major.
The Strad Issue: January 2007Musicians: Frank Almond (violin) William Wolfram (piano)Composer: Janácek, Respighi, Strauss Despite the supreme advocacy of Kyung-Wha Chung and Krystian Zimerman on an award-winning Deutsche Grammophon release back in 1990, the Respighi Sonata has failed to make much of ...
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ArticleBritish Viola Concertos. Walton: Viola Concerto. Beamish: Viola Concerto no.1. Britten: Lachrymae
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Tatjana Masurenko, NDR Radio Philharmonic, Garry WalkerComposer: Walton, Beamish, BrittenTatjana Masurenko keeps growing in artistry every time I hear her. Following an unaccompanied recital (also for Coviello Classics) which I reviewed over two years ago (see The Strad, April 2004), she now ...
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ArticleRihm: String Quartets nos.1, 4, 5 & 8
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Doelen QuartetComposer: Rihm The twelve-ish quartets of Wolfgang Rihm are set fair to define the state of the art of the modern quartet. A bold claim? Well, it’s bold music, and musicians seem keen to measure up to ...
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ArticleShostakovich: Violin Concertos nos.1 & 2
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Sergei Khachatryan (violin) French National Orchestra, Kurt Masur (conductor)Composer: ShostakovichAnd still they come. Recordings of Shostakovich’s claustrophobically forbidding First Concerto continue to emerge at a dizzying pace that currently shows no sign of abating. Although collectors should on no account miss hearing ...
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ArticleHaydn: Cello Concerto no.1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1*. Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto no.1 in A minor, op.33. Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor, op.85
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Mstislav Rostropovich (cello/director*) London Symphony Orchestra, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky (conductor)Composer: Haydn, Saint-Saëns, ElgarUntil I was asked to annotate this disc of 1965 concert recordings, I had not heard this particular Rostropovich performance of the Elgar Concerto. I knew his interpretation only from an ...
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ArticleProkofiev: Solo Violin Sonata in D major op.115, Violin Sonatas no.1 in F minor op.80 & no.2 in D major op.94a, Sonata for two violins in C major op.56*, Five Melodies op.35bis, Waltz from ‘War and Pe
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Tatiana Samouil (violin) Boris Brovtsyn (violin)* Plamena Mangova (piano)Composer: ProkofievSt Petersburg-born Tatiana Samouil brings authentic Russian grit to these performances, with real string-biting playing in the Allegro brusco of Prokofiev’s First Sonata and the final Allegro precipitato of the Solo Sonata. What ...
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ArticleBax: Violin Sonatas nos.1 & 3
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Laurence Jackson (violin) Ashley Wass (piano)Composer: BaxArnold Bax was born into a wealthy Surrey family, which enabled him to indulge his passion for composing away from the usual pressures of having to earn a living from it. He travelled widely and settled ...
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Rihm: String Quartets vol.4: nos.10 & 12, Quartettstudie
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Minguet QuartetComposer: RihmOne of Wolfgang Rihm’s artistic heroes is the French writer, thinker and (eventually) lunatic Antonin Artaud, famous for his reformulation of modern drama as a Theatre of Cruelty. Artaud wrote that he wanted to restore to the theatre ‘a passionate and convulsive ...
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ArticleJ.S. Bach: Violin Concertos in D minor BWV1052, in G minor BWV1056, in E major BWV 1042 & in A minor BWV1041
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Monica Huggett (violin), SonnerieComposer: J.S. BachAn instinctive period violinist with excellent technical command, Monica Huggett offers positive, largely robust accounts of these concertos, enlivening their outer movements with vital, incisive playing. She is amply assisted by the members of Sonnerie, who, one-per-part, ...
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ArticleSchubert: Arpeggione Sonata in A minor D821, Sonatine D384, Das Wandern, Ungeduld, Die Vögel, Wiegenlied, Nacht und Träume. Webern: Three Pieces op.11. Berg: Four Pieces op.5
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello) Alexandre Tharaud (piano)Composer: Schubert, Webern, BergSchubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, generally viewed as an enchantingly sunny work, reveals an underlying anguish in the hands of this much-recorded French duo. Queyras writes in the booklet of this anguish, and of ...
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ArticleShostakovich: String Quartet no.8 in C minor op.110; Six Poems by Marina Tsvetaeva op.143 (arr. Auerbach for contralto & string quartet). Auerbach: Cetera desunt: sonnet for string quartet
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Petersen Quartet, Zoryana Kushpler (mezzo-soprano)Composer: Shostakovich, Auerbach One of many impressive details in the Petersen Quartet’s playing of Shostakovich’s landmark Eighth Quartet is its almost Classical poise: the opening is gorgeously serene, which makes the outburst of the fiery ...
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ArticleShostakovich: Violin Sonata op.134, Viola Sonata op.147
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Isabelle van Keulen (violin/viola) Ronald Brautigam (piano)Composer: Shostakovich This is a different view of the Violin Sonata from the 1969 Melodiya recording by David Oistrakh and Sviatoslav Richter made one year after their premiere performance of the score. Seeking ...
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ArticleLe Violon de Ravel. Ravel: Violin Sonata, Vocalise en forme de habanera (transcr. Georges Catherine), Valses nobles et sentimentales nos.6 & 7 (transcr. Jascha Heifetz), Tzigane, Violin Sonata (1897),
The Strad Issue: January 2006Musicians: Diego Tosi (violin) Nathalie Juchors (piano) Annette Abscheidt (harp) La Camerata de FranceComposer: RavelDiego Tosi’s homage to Ravel includes an impressive account of Tzigane in David Walter’s orchestral transcription. Having sustained the tension and improvisatory character of the initial unaccompanied section with ...
