Parry Karp: Bloch

The Strad Issue: September 2025

Description: Persuasive ardency serves this heightened music well

Musicians: Parry Karp (cello) BBC National Orchestra of Wales/Kenneth Woods

Works: Bloch: Schelomo; Suite for viola and orchestra (arr. cello)

Catalogue number: SIGNUM SIGCD932

The musical language of Bloch’s Schelomo is highly distinctive, marrying heightened emotional lyricism with an exotic mysticism. Every now and then, the timbres have a bewitching shimmering quality that fleetingly suggests Impressionism. At other times, the charged language simply propels you forward in the narrative.

Parry Karp steers an adroit path between delivering the intense soaring melodic invention with passion, and reining in the fervour to create contrast. The sinewy cello figuration is expertly delineated, with the complex rhythmic notation accurately drawn, resulting in a seemingly spontaneous stream of melody. The rubatos are persuasive, pushing forward in agitato passages and whispering sweetly in the sul tasto writing, with piquant quartertones likewise eloquently depicted. Kenneth Woods has brought a great deal of detail into the orchestral partnership, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales delivers an impressive tautness of ensemble.

The Suite for viola and orchestra is couched in a similar style. This version, arranged by Karp’s teacher Gábor Rejtö, and colleague Adolph Baller, shows the cello to be an idiomatic alternative, and makes a good pairing in this well-recorded release. The four movements are carefully contrasted, the third-movement Lento atmospherically languid, while the ensuing Molto vivo is rhythmically more charged and affirmative in spirit. Again, these artists offer a highly persuasive reading.

JOANNE TALBOT