A palpable sense of commitment brings this music to life
The Strad Issue: January 2026
Description: A palpable sense of commitment brings this music to life
Musicians: Roman Mints (violin, hurdy-gurdy) Maxim Rysanov (viola) Kristina Blaumane (cello) Dasol Kim (piano) BBC Concert Orchestra/Dobrinka Tabakova
Works: Tabakova: Whispered Lullaby; Suite in Jazz Style; Fantasy Homage to Schubert; Organum Light; Spinning a Yarn; Sun Triptych
Catalogue number: ECM 4878558
Bulgarian-born, London-based composer Dobrinka Tabakova has a striking ability to discover fresh perspectives and raw emotional depths in music whose style might at first seem familiar, as this collection of works written between 2006 and 2014 displays.
She has written several works for Ukrainian–British violist Maxim Rysanov, and he brings a touching sense of sincerity and vulnerability to the naive, sentimental melodies of Whispered Lullaby, while displaying far grittier, harder-edged playing in the Piazzolla-meets-Bach intricacies of the Suite in Jazz Style, playing off Dasol Kim’s forthright contribution to energising effect.
Tabakova was the BBC Concert Orchestra’s composer-in-residence from 2017 to 2020, and the ensemble’s strings give beautifully nuanced, richly imagined accounts under her direction here. The sumptuous double concerto Sun Triptych – originally written for Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica – takes us from a quietly radiant dawn to a poignant dusk with assured playing from violinist Roman Mints and cellist Kristina Blaumane.
The Fantasy Homage to Schubert for string orchestra – surely one of the disc’s highlights – takes its time in shifting between dense clusters and glowing consonant harmonies, before revealing the Schubert melody that has been there all along. Its emotional effect is intensified in the BBC Concert Orchestra and Tabakova’s assured account. This is a disc to move and inspire, captured in close, warm, recorded sound.
DAVID KETTLE
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