RECORDINGS

RHYTHM AND THE BORROWED PAST AUERBACH Violin Sonata no.3

BEAUDOIN In höchster Not CAGE Nocturne MESSIAEN Theme and Variations Daniel Kurganov (violin)

Constantine Finehouse (piano)

ORCHID CLASSICS ORC 100182

Powerful advocacy of hugely demanding violin music

Don’t be put off by the disc’s conceptual title, derived no doubt from composer Richard Beaudoin’s (slightly unconvincing) booklet notes arguing that all the music here concerns contrasting conceptions of rhythm and time. That aside, it’s a thoroughly compelling showcase for Soviet-born, US-raised violinist Daniel Kurganov’s considerable talents across what are actually four very different pieces, ably partnered by pianist Constantine Finehouse.

Like Kurganov, composer Lera Auerbach was born in the Soviet Union and studied in America, and with its unrestrained emotion and its unflinching evocations of darkness and despair, her Third Violin Sonata is the stand-out work here. Kurganov gives a superbly committed account that bristles with conviction, bringing a larger-than-life theatricality to Auerbach’s sometimes extreme gestures, but backing it up with superbly nuanced vibrato, phrasing and tone. The extremely close recording captures every last sound as bow contacts string or left hand shifts position – it’s a little distracting at times, but nonetheless adds a vivid immediacy to Kurganov’s already searing performance.

His partnership with Finehouse comes more firmly to the fore in the rippling, unpredictable counterpoint of Beaudoin’s In höchster Not, in which the two players intertwine in sometimes jazzy figurations. There’s a wonderfully veiled quality to Kurganov’s playing in Cage’s delicate Nocturne, played with exceptional care but still with a strong sense of purpose. Only the concluding Messiaen Theme and Variations feels strangely less convincing, foursquare where it should be flowing, harsh and driven where it could be rhapsodic and dreamy. Nonetheless, it’s a very rewarding disc that’s full of emotion and big personalities, from composers and performers alike.

DAVID KETTLE

BACH Concerto for two violins in D minor BWV1043; Violin Concertos: in A minor BWV1041, in E major BWV1042; Brandenburg Concerto no.5 in D major BWV1050

Daniel Hope, Marieke Blankestijn (violins), Kristian Bezuidenhout (harpsichord) Javier Martín (flute) Chamber Orchestra of Europe

WARNER CLASSICS 9029623755

An outstanding dance-infused account of these much-recorded works

What a winner this disc is. Daniel Hope, directing the Chamber Orchestra of Europe from the violin, instils a sense of infectious joy into these best-loved of Bach’s works for violin and orchestra. They are rhythmically tight and with sparkling sound: I have seldom enjoyed a recording more.

Dance is so much at the forefront of these interpretations that it is hard to keep to your seat when listening. Textures are consistently light and tempos fleet of foot in the allegros; even the Largo of the ‘Double’ Concerto feels like an elegant slow dance.

The counterpoint is brought out with satisfying clarity in the first movement of the E major Concerto, while in the second Allegro – very definitely one-in-a-bar and in party mood here – Hope’s demisemiquaver patterns whip up the excitement still further. In the slow movements of both solo concertos the ostinato bass-lines are deliberately earthbound, allowing Hope to spin a silken thread of sound over the top, creating a moment of pure magic in the A minor’s Andante with his delicate pianissimo.

There is elegant interplay with the flute in the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, with the solo harpsichord sound particularly delicate and gentle even in its extended cadenza.

JANET BANKS

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MARIA BACH Piano Quintet ‘Wolga’; Cello Sonata; Suite for solo cello

Marina Grauman, Nina Karmon (violins), Öykü Canpolat (viola) Alexander Hülshoff (cello) Oliver Triendl (piano)

HÄNSSLER CLASSIC HC 21051

Fiery readings of rarely heard chamber music

No sooner has CPO released a fine collection of Maria Bach’s chamber music (reviewed last month), than rival German label Hänssler produces its own selection, with the ‘Wolga’ Piano Quintet and Cello Sonata common to both.

Side-by-side comparisons reveal distinct differences of approach in the quintet: the Hänssler players are slightly swifter in all three movements, more impassioned in their emotional responses, and boldly project a concert-hall ambience, enhanced by the gently distanced engineering. By comparison, the CPO players achieve a chamber-scale intimacy that emphasises the music’s Debussyan harmonic flavours and colours.

The Cello Sonata encapsulates the essential differences between the two sets, with Alexander Hülshoff and Oliver Triendl bringing to it a forthright passion, whereas Matthias Johansen and Yukie Takai (CPO) are more inward.

Hülshoff rounds out the Hänssler collection with the four-movement Solo Cello Suite written for Bach’s sister Henriette. Remarkably, for such an accomplished work, it was never performed publicly during the composer’s lifetime (Maria died in 1978, aged nearly 82). Hülshoff, boldly recorded, plays with fiery temperament and tonal opulence.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas: in D major op.12 no.1, in F major op.24 (‘Spring’), in G major op.96

Rachel Podger (violin)

Christopher Glynn (piano)

CHANNEL CLASSICS CCSSA 44222

Spontaneity and intelligence as a Baroque giant explores new territory

Rachel Podger and Christopher Glynn’s new album (see April 2022’s Session Report) comprises thoughtful accounts of three of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, effectively demonstrating the composer’s development in the genre from youth to maturity. Their refreshingly spontaneous performances exploit the colourful timbres and clear articulatory qualities of the 1718 ‘Maurin’ Stradivari and an 1840 Érard piano. Only occasionally is the relative newness of their musical partnership betrayed by imprecise rhythm and imperfect ensemble.

Podger takes some liberties with Beethoven’s prescribed articulations, but employs vibrato as a subtle colouration, aiming to show both the music’s ‘extreme beauty’, as in the slow movement of op.24 and the fourth variation of op.12 no.1’s central movement, and its ‘rawness and drama’, as revealed in the stormy preceding variation. The duo adopts an intimate, conversational approach and regularly adds unscripted ornamentation when themes or movement sections are reprised, even in the fleet Scherzo of op.24; Glynn’s decorations of the pauses in the rondo finale of op.12 are especially pleasing.

Their most outstanding performance, though, is in the op.96 sonata where they seem most relaxed in each other’s company, especially in the finale’s Adagio espressivo section. The recording is exemplary, although the second-to-third movement attacca in op.96 could have been more sensitively managed.

ROBIN STOWELL

OSTINATA: WORKS FOR SOLO VIOLIN BIBER Passacaglia in G minor ‘The Guardian Angel’ BARTÓK Sonata Sz.117 PROKOFIEV Sonata in D major op.115 BACEWICZ Sonata no.2 YSAŸE Sonata no.4 in E minor op.27

Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux (violin)

CHAMPS HILL RECORDS CHRCD 158

An impressively assured recording debut from a violinist to watch

Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux opens this solo violin CD with Biber’s Passacaglia in a spare, contemplative performance with only a light touch of vibrato. She is precise but rhythmically quite free. The opening G minor chord of Bartók’s Solo Sonata that follows could be a straight continuation of Biber, leading into a first movement of similar measured pace and controlled emotion. For all the fireworks and superbly executed technical devilry, there is a feeling here of essential calm, which is shattered by the vehemence of the following Fuga, played with textural clarity and a great sense of line. The Melodia is other-worldly, exquisite and inexorable, and the light scurrying of the final Presto is sharply contrasted with the brutal fortissimo dance interjections.

Saluste-Bridoux kicks off the opening Moderato of Prokofiev’s Solo Sonata with crisp, jaunty playing, flicking the appoggiaturas with insouciance and bringing sultry elegance to the second subject.

There is fine lyrical playing in the second-movement variations and sparkling caprice in the finale. The mysterious world of Bacewicz’s Second Solo Sonata is full of fine detail, at times fierce and assertive, at others probing, and she dashes splendidly through the helter-skelter doublestopped finale. Ysaÿe’s Fourth Sonata is a wonderful mixture of technical rigour and emotional flexibility, with Saluste-Bridoux bringing lyrical flow and tonal beauty to even the most complex passages of multiplestopping. The recording is close, with just enough ambient warmth.

TIM HOMFRAY

MUSICAL REMEMBRANCES BRAHMS Piano Trio no.1 RAVEL Piano Trio RACHMANINOFF Trio élégiaque no.1

Neave Trio

CHANDOS CHAN 20167

Wide-ranging trio repertoire proves to be a mixed bag

This fourth release by the Neave Trio for Chandos follows discs of American, French and women composers. The works here span a mere 60 years, but the stylistic imprints are distinctive and varied, a challenge to which the trio has bravely but not always successfully risen.

The Brahms is the high point, with a characteristic warm, easygoing lyricism in the first movement that contrasts with ample muscle when the going gets turbulent. The Scherzo has a decent lightness of touch, while the Adagio, with its hushed wide piano chords and pliant responses from strings, reaches that Brahmsian sublimity, hampered (according to taste) only by violinist Anna Williams’s dialling down of vibrato, an expressive effect, but one that has the tone in danger of breaking up.

The Rachmaninoff and Ravel are less convincing, especially in a crowded field. Though the pieces are well played, it’s the stylistic rightness that feels missing: the frozen beauty, cool precision and evanescent colourings of the Ravel, the effusive Romanticism and darker tonal colouring of the Rachmaninoff. Likewise the sound quality is fine, but the blend isn’t seamless. A perfectly presentable release; but, as Will Smith says in the film Hitch, ‘What if I want extraordinary?’

EDWARD BHESANIA

DEBUSSY Violin Sonata in G minor FAURÉ Berceuse FRANCK Violin Sonata in A major RAVEL Pièce en forme de habanera SCHUBERT Fantasy in C major D934; Rondo brillant in B minor D891

David Nadien (violin)

David Hancock (piano)

BIDDULPH 85012-2

Outstanding Debussy from this much-missed concertmaster

Brooklyn-born David Nadien (1926– 2014) was a legendary freelance violinist, concertmaster and occasional soloist whose records of short pieces were notable for their brilliance and timbral range.

Begin listening at track 7, where you’ll find a splendid Franck Sonata with the excellent pianist David Hancock (1927–2001). Apart from one or two slightly short-breathed phrases, it reflects what Nadien learnt from his main teacher Ivan Galamian.

Fauré’s Berceuse is beautifully played (though perhaps a little too ‘straight’) but then comes perhaps the finest Debussy Sonata ever recorded on the American continent. It glistens, it glitters, it shimmers, it dances with infinite tonal variety. This is the authentic tradition, direct from Lucien Capet via Galamian. Then Ravel’s Vocalise, which is nicely voiced.

It was a mistake to open with unpublished versions of the two pieces Schubert wrote for the Czech virtuoso Josef Slavík. The Fantasy in C major, among the most difficult works in the repertoire, is forever linked with one of Nadien’s early teachers, Adolf Busch, and his duo partner Rudolf Serkin.

Hancock is too loud initially and Nadien emits a most peculiar noise; the two do not settle down until the statement of the song theme and – in the Rondo brillant as well – there is hacking-through-theundergrowth and strained violin intonation. But oh, that Debussy!

TULLY POTTER

MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor SINDING Violin Concerto no.1 in A major; Romance in D major Lea Birringer (violin) Hof Symphony Orchestra/Hermann Bäumer

RUBICON RCD 1081

A young violinist makes a strong case for Sinding

The German violinist Lea Birringer chooses the evergreen Mendelssohn for her concerto debut disc but it’s the coupling that might attract more attention. Christian Sinding (1856– 1941) is one of those one-hit wonders whose signature work – in his case the piano miniature The Rustle of Spring – obscures a substantial catalogue of finely crafted works. His A major Violin Concerto (1898; the first of three) audibly sits among the company of Brahms, Bruch and Dvořák without ever sounding like straight pastiche. The solo part is fiendishly challenging – the composer initially studied as a violinist – but rewarding, with plenty of opportunity for display alongside moments of introspection. The D major Romance (1910) admits the nature music of Weber and Wagner among its influences, notably in the low woodwind passage that opens the work, and spins a songful line through its rhapsodic progress.

Birringer makes an eloquent case for these rarely heard and littlerecorded works. Her tone is rich and focused, and her full deployment of a range of portamento and rubato testify to her intuitive identification with this music. Her accompanists, from the Franconian town of Hof, in the northern corner of Bavaria near the Czech border, are dutiful rather than characterful but just about keep up with Birringer’s impulsive lead. The venue is the town’s capacious Freiheitshalle, which doubles as a venue for rock concerts and trade fairs. The Mendelssohn is sure to dominate Birringer’s concerto engagements but it’s a pleasure to make the acquaintance of the unfamiliar Sinding works in such committed and satisfying performances here.

DAVID THREASHER

PAGANINI Quartets for strings and guitar: no.7 in E major, no.14 in A major, no.15 in A minor

Paganini Ensemble Vienna

DYNAMIC CDS 7938

Paganini chamber-musical byways persuasively presented

In addition to 50-plus sonatas for violin and guitar, Paganini wrote 15 quartets for guitar, violin, viola and cello, three of which the Paganini Ensemble Vienna presents here in the second volume of its survey. The results are satisfying even if the music itself is not always inherently exciting. The quartets are fairly conventional in form and expression – not surprising, perhaps, when many were dedicated Alle amatrici (‘to the amateurs’). No.14 is one of the most virtuosic, with upwardrocketing arpeggios that violinist Mario Hossen despatches with flair. The eye-opener here is the finale, an unstinting moto perpetuo, played with spirit and precision.

No.15 is marred by a repetitive first movement which has a paucity of ideas, but for a change the viola has the best tunes. Paganini’s relatively high writing occasionally causes violist Marta Potulska’s tone to tighten, but the playing is suitably heroic in mood. There’s plenty of Romantic sentiment in the Recitativo and Adagio cantabile movements, which together create an operatic-like scena for viola; similarly, the slow movement of no.7 is a mournful lament for violin.

The sound quality is close but allows the texture to breathe, conveying the pleasure these players evidently take in their music making.

EDWARD BHESANIA

RIES String Quartets vol.4: in A minor op.150 no.1; String Quintet in C major op.37

Schuppanzigh Quartet, Raquel Massades (viola)

CPO 777 306-2

Committed advocacy of this neglected Beethoven pupil

‘He imitates me too much’ is alleged to have been Beethoven’s cantankerous verdict on his erstwhile student and on-off friend, secretary and copyist Ferdinand Ries (1784– 1838). Well, up to a point. The younger man clearly learnt from him how to exploit harmony to drive a musical argument, as well as a smart line in rhythmic energy – the way, for example, the uneasy Scherzo of the A minor Quartet (c.1826) is propelled along by accented off-beats. Ries is also more inclined to relax into a long-breathed melody than to hammer away at motivic cells, and his tunes have a greater degree of memorability than is often the case in similar secondtier composers.

The C major String Quintet was composed for this ensemble’s 19th-century namesake, and accordingly the lead violin line carries much of the virtuoso interest, which occasionally taxes Ignaz Schuppanzigh’s 21st-century counterpart at extremes of range or tempo. Mozart’s quintet in the same key (K515) is a clear influence on this 1809 work, with the extra viola, here as there, gloriously enriching the mid-range and offering enhanced opportunities for subgroupings of three or four players. It’s the finer work of the two, and the longer, with a particularly hefty finale whose initially rustic demeanour gives way to a finely wrought and, yes, Beethovenian argument of 13-and-a-half minutes that compels the attention throughout. Despite occasional lapses of intonation and ensemble, this naturalistically recorded fourth instalment in the Schuppanzigh Quartet’s slow-burn survey (instigated in 2004) offers an appealing cross-section of Ries’s chamber output.

DAVID THREASHER

TANGUY Piano Quintet; In a Dream; Spirales; Nachtmusik; Rhapsodie; Sonata breve; Lacrymosa; Piano Trio

Alexandra Conunova, Rosanne Philippens (violins) Lise Berthaud (viola) Edgar Moreau (cello) Pierre Génisson (clarinet) Suzana Bartal, David Kadouch (pianos) Diotima Quartet

ERATO 0190296355660

Rhapsody in abundance from a classy line-up of musicians

Composer Eric Tanguy is a prominent figure in his native France, though less well known elsewhere. For anyone new to his lyrical, rhapsodic music, however, this eloquent survey of his chamber works – much of it performed by its dedicatees – is an excellent place to begin.

Tanguy writes very much in the tradition of Dutilleux and Messiaen, and wears those influences with pride. They are much in evidence in the disc’s opening Piano Quintet, which the Diotima Quartet and pianist Suzana Bartal (also Tanguy’s wife) deliver with a beguiling mix of vigour and fantasy. The Diotima players are wonderfully syrupy in some of Tanguy’s slower, more luscious music, though nicely crisp and energetic in the more forthright passages.

Elsewhere, violinist Alexandra Conunova offers a rich, throaty account of Tanguy’s bluesy In a Dream, and she’s joyfully spirited in his solo Sonata breve, which collides together gypsy-style exuberance with driving, almost Adams-like rhythms to thrilling effect. There’s an entrancing buoyancy to violist Lise Berthaud’s Rhapsodie, and she’s effortlessly agile across Tanguy’s angular, widely spread melodies. Cellist Edgar Moreau is sometimes rather overshadowed by Bartal’s assertive piano playing in the dashing energy of Spirales, but delivers a high-definition, characterful account all the same. He returns – with violinist Rosanne Philippens and pianist David Kadouch – for a remarkably sensitive performance of Tanguy’s Piano Trio, capturing the composer’s Messiaen-like languour brilliantly, while conveying the over-the-top exuberance of the work’s climax with an appropriate sense of abandon. Tanguy’s heavily perfumed harmonies and rhapsodic inventions might benefit from being sampled in smaller doses than a full, 75-minute disc, but there’s no doubting the conviction and commitment here, captured in warm, close sound.

DAVID KETTLE

THE MANDOLIN SEASONS VIVALDI The Four Seasons PIAZZOLLA

The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires

Jacob Reuven (mandolin) Omer Meir Wellber (accordion, harpsichord, conductor) Moritz Klauk (cello) Sinfonietta Leipzig

HYPERION CDA 68357

A fresh take on an evergreen set of concertos

This ‘Four Seasons’ coupling offers fresh and exotic perspectives on Vivaldi and Piazzolla’s concertos, replacing the solo violin with the contrasting techniques and timbres of the mandolin and/or accordion. Jacob Reuven demonstrates his dexterity on the former, especially in ‘Autumn in Buenos Aires’ and the opening Allegro of ‘Spring’, but occasionally experiences hand coordination issues in some challenging passagework during these live recordings. Omer Meir Wellber multitasks exuberantly, directing the ensemble, contributing some inventive Vivaldian harpsichord continuo, playing a melodic role as accordionist in sections of Vivaldi’s works less suited to the mandolin and bringing an echt, bandoneon-like timbre to Piazzolla’s seductive, exuberant sound world.

Regrettably, the limitations of mandolin technique sometimes affect tempo considerations, most notably in the somewhat laboured first movement of ‘Winter’, finale of ‘Summer’ and in ‘Spring in Buenos Aires’; it’s a pity, too, that the soloists don’t clothe with additional ornamentation the naked melodies of, for example, the Largos of ‘Winter’ and ‘Spring’ and the Adagio sections of ‘Summer’. Cellist Moritz Klauk plays a significant solo role in Piazzolla’s ‘Autumn’ and Winter’ concertos, and the string ensemble (drawn from the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester) contributes a kaleidoscope of colourful effects, all captured in close, clear recorded sound.

ROBIN STOWELL

WEINBERG String Quartets vol.2: nos.1,7 and 11

Arcadia Quartet

CHANDOS CHAN 20174

A second volume of quartets makes a strong case for this Soviet master

Why aren’t these quartets more well known? They deserve to be, displaying as they do consummate writing for this genre. They receive, in this ambient recording, the most persuasive of interpretations, each phrase and nuance nurtured. This second volume from the much-lauded Arcadia Quartet reveals the players as masters of homogenous textures; and in the highly chromatic, dense writing of the First Quartet, which hovers between Romanticism and Expressionism, they produce an effective clarity. To its dreamy second movement, with its nods towards Impressionism, they bring plenty of colour, and the closing Allegro is rhythmically punchy, with a vein of Bartók percolating the motifs.

Tightly worked material is a hallmark of Weinberg’s style. His later music demonstrates this, but with a sparer texture and harmonic language influenced by his friend Shostakovich. Within a structurally cohesive and thematically unified dialogue, this performance really explores the drama of the Seventh Quartet, and draws the listener through the musical plot. The Allegretto is particularly winning, with a bittersweet melancholy – no surprise that this was a movement favoured by the Borodin Quartet as an encore. Linear clarity also characterises the Quartet no.11, and here a judicious use of vibrato allows the lines to impact, not least in the soloistically cast opening, and the reflective yet intricate Allegro leggiero.

JOANNE TALBOT

A GATHERING OF FRIENDS WILLIAMS Cello Concerto; Highwood’s Ghost; With malice toward none; A Prayer for Peace; Three Pieces (Schindler’s List)

Yo-Yo Ma (cello) Jessica Zhou (harp) Pablo Sáinz-Villegas (guitar) New York Philharmonic Orchestra/John Williams

SONY CLASSICAL 19439983662

A 90th-birthday celebration uniting two American greats

Yo-Yo Ma and composer John Williams are a near-perfect match, musically speaking, whether in exuberant outpourings or introspective musings. They first met four decades ago and since then have collaborated on innumerable occasions. Williams composed his Cello Concerto for Ma in 1994 at the suggestion of conductor Seiji Ozawa. Over time, he has made a series of revisions that have now been incorporated into a new version of the piece which features a number of major structural changes, including a finale described by Ma as ‘a glorious song, spinning and spinning to the very end’.

Also included are new arrangements of numbers from Williams’s Schindler’s List and Lincoln, a duo arrangement for Ma and guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas of ‘Prayer for Peace’ from Munich, and Highwood’s Ghost, a 2018 work featuring harpist Jessica Zhou which conjures the sound world of German Expressionism.

These impassioned, authoritative performances, luxuriously recorded, are remarkable not only for their interpretative acumen, but also Ma’s unfailing technical prowess. Highlights include his beguiling tonal sophistication in the sultry Blues second movement of the concerto, and an unstinting agility in the following Scherzo. Williams accompanies with expert attentiveness and clear affection.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

LOVE STORIES PIAZZOLLA Le grand tango; Ave Maria DODERER Break on Through HAMILTON Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo KAPUSTIN Burlesque; Elegy; Nearly Waltz Konstantin Manaev (cello) Danae Dörken (piano)

ARS 38597

THE SONGS OF OUR NEIGHBOURS SVIRIDOV Ural Tune; Time, forward!; Chastushka DODERER Volcano KODÁLY Duo SADIKOVA For Stradivari KUKAL Present Julia Smirnova (violin) Konstantin Manaev (cello)

ARS 38587

Exuberant explorations of Eastern European and contemporary music

The irrepressible force behind this pair of CDs, recorded in two warmly sounding Berlin locations, is cellist Konstantin Manaev, whose largerthan-life personality comes across strongly both as recitalist and chamber music partner. His adventurous choice of repertoire focuses on music written this century. The two works by Ástor Piazzolla that bookend the piano-accompanied recital Love Stories are only slightly earlier, dating from the 1980s. In Le grand tango, written for Rostropovitch, Manaev and Danae Dörken kick up a riot of rhythm that doesn’t let up until the orgiastic end. Their arrangement of Ave Maria explores the cello’s full range and allows Manaev’s lyrical vein to burgeon freely.

Nikolai Kapustin’s jazzy effusions receive toe-tapping readings that sound – as they should – improvised, ending with a scale of natural harmonics from Manaev that disappears off the cello’s fingerboard. At the recital’s centre is a heartrending tone poem by Gordon Hamilton, inspired by a pair of star-crossed lovers killed during the Bosnian War. Hamilton’s tonal language finds great heights of expressivity that are gratefully seized upon by both players, who also relish the composer’s allusions to Balkan folk music. Johanna Doderer composed Break on Through ‘freely after Jim Morrison’, employing the singer’s rhythmic structures as the basis of a piece that develops an overwhelming momentum, unbroken by several cello cadenzas, before reaching a somewhat tonguein-cheek ending.

The companion album finds Manaev in duo with his wife, violinist Julia Smirnova. As its title suggests, it gathers music from Eastern Europe, appropriately beginning at its furthest end, the Ural region – from where the cellist hails. Folkloristic strains are much to the fore throughout the programme, which has Kodály’s Duo as its monumental centrepiece. If its characteristic rhythms occasionally sound too literal in their hands, Smirnova and Manaev are attentive partners, as their coordinated vibrato and well-paced cadenzas demonstrate. Doderer’sVolcano, originally written as a solo for Manaev, has been arranged as a duo for the pair, who again evince great unanimity of conception. After Aziza Sadikova’s timbric explorations, this enterprising programme is completed by the Czech inflections of Ondřej Kukal’sPresent and a short envoi from Georgy Sviridov, whose energetic music had started the journey, neatly wrapping things up.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

SOLITUDE

Works for solo violin by Biber, Kreisler, Paganini, Panufnik, Say, Sir, Snowden and Ysaÿe Joo Yeon Sir (violin)

RUBICON RCD 1076

A lockdown project combining solo violin music both mainstream and rare

Here is another CD grown out of lockdown, when fiddlers everywhere seem to have dug out all their solo music and gone hunting for more. Joo Yeon Sir opens with one of the earliest classics of the repertoire, Biber’s Passacaglia in G minor, which she plays with a potent mixture of delicacy, precision and rubato. Two Paganini caprices follow. The Tenth, after its opening Vivace, is a somewhat po-faced account, whereas the 24th is full of contrasting characters: the third variation, in octaves, sounds like a lugubrious escapee from Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice is light and witty after its soulful, mezzo-forte opening, but a tad thin-sounding, downplaying the ff pesante markings.

There follows a run of recent works, starting with Sir’s own My dear Bessie, inspired by some wartime love letters, a quiet piece full of hesitant flutterings. Roxanna Panufnik’s Hora Bessarabia becomes a nifty will-o’-the-wisp dance; Fazil Say’s Cleopatra is a disquieting rhapsodic dialogue between melodic fragments, with many augmented seconds and percussive effects, played with rhythmic freedom and an improvisatory sensibility. There follows a moving performance of Laura Snowden’s Through the fog, written especially for this CD. It has almost inaudible high harmonics, a folk-like dirge and a frenetic double-stopped outburst.

Finally comes Ysaÿe’s Sixth Solo Sonata, with wonderful expressive rubato. It is all superbly well played, in a close and slightly reverberant recording.

TIM HOMFRAY