RECORDINGS

CAROLINE BITTENCOURT

PRISM IV BACH Fugue in G minor BEETHOVEN String Quartet in A minor op.132 MENDELSSOHN String Quartet no.2 in A minor op.13

Danish Quartet

ECM NEW SERIES 4857305

Typically enterprising programme from one of today’s outstanding quartets

Imaginative programming and superb quartet playing make this an outstanding album. Each of these works is intricately constructed using time-honoured devices such as fugues, and within that intervallic and motific liaisons which forge cogency and continuity. These are elements that the Danish Quartet palpably cherish.

Lucidity in the voicing is nicely transparent, helped in the Bach Fugue (from Book 1 of the 48, arranged by Emanuel Aloys Förster) by the sparing use of vibrato, set in a warmly recorded sound. The link with the Beethoven is in part the reference to Bach’s fugal subject, but more importantly demonstrates old traditions forging with new ones.

Hence Beethoven alludes to old-style Palestrina-type counterpoint in the slow movement, while at the same time expanding musical horizons.

The quartet negotiates the juxtapositions in tempos and mood in the first and third movements with absolute mastery, and the range of articulation and gestural delivery is magnetic and compelling, with voicing astutely used to point harmonic sequences as we savour the piece’s swift-changing emotions.

Mendelssohn’s youthful quartet pays homage to Bach in its contrapuntal mastery, but equally to Beethoven in its Sturm und Drang qualities. Once again, the Danish Quartet projects the urgency of the music through dazzling technical mastery and ensemble, handling transitions of mood within movements with conviction. I particularly liked the slower tempo to the Intermezzo, now donning a more melancholic hue than in many other performances and gracefully transforming into the ensuing fleet-footed Allegro di molto.

JOANNE TALBOT

CASTRUCCI Sonate a Violino e Violone o Cembalo op.1

Gerald Elias (violin) Pamela Palmer-Jones (harpsichord) Noriko Kishi (cello)

CENTAUR RECORDS CRC3932/3933 (2 CDS)

A Romantic approach to Italian Baroque rarities

Veteran violinist Gerald Elias has admitted (The Strad, May 2022) that this release probably represents both his debut and swan song as a solo recording artist. Whatever the future may hold, his accomplished premiere recordings give renewed life to these 12 unjustly neglected violin sonatas by a Roman pupil of Corelli who moved to London in 1715 where he rubbed shoulders with, among others, Handel and Geminiani.

Elias draws an agreeable, delicate tone from an instrument ‘adapted for Baroque playing’, tuned to A=415Hz and played with a Baroque bow. His essentially modern technique is circumspect, yet substantially accurate, and he nurtures the line with ample vibrato. He interprets Castrucci’s generic ornament signs intelligently and adds his own imaginative embellishments with fluency and good taste. Having clarified various textual problems, he retained the distinctive scordatura timbres of the standout no.12 and the harmonic and tonal adventurousness, exemplified in the last three movements of no.7 and the Andante of no.9, (the last of which caused Charles Burney to describe

To browse through more than a decade of The Strad ’s recording reviews, visit www.thestrad.com/reviews

Castrucci’s works as ‘too mad for his own age’). The dark undercurrents of nos.2, 3, 8 and 12 are well characterised, as are the goodhumoured repartee of no.4’s Andante and no.5’s Allegro and the brooding qualities of the opening movement of no.1.

The recorded balance does Elias few favours, however, his continuo duo often becoming too prominent in the mix. Noriko Kishi enthusiastically supports the continuo bass-line throughout, anachronistically playing a cello with modern set-up, but the contribution of harpsichordist Pamela Palmer-Jones is modestly functional rather than extrovert.

ROBIN STOWELL

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Nonet in F minor; Piano Trio in E minor;

Piano Quintet in G minor Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

CHANDOS CHAN 20242

Persuasive accounts of this at-times impressive student fare

Coleridge-Taylor wrote the works on this recording when he was still a teenager studying at the Royal College of Music in London. They are closer to Brahms than Hiawatha, but certainly worth an outing. In the opening Allegro of the Nonet (using Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet line-up plus oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn), the strings pick up the opening theme with an intoxicating sweep. Violinist Elena Urioste neatly negotiates some nifty high writing in the Andante. There is rhythmic energy in the Scherzo, with another of Coleridge-Taylor’s lilting tunes, played with a hint of swing, and there are patches of lively counterpoint in the final Allegro molto. The musicians convey the genial quality of the piece, with playing that presses onwards, while sounding unhurried.

The Piano Trio is a short, attractive work in which nothing really gets going. The Piano Quintet is on a grander scale, with many gradings of colour and intensity. In the secondmovement Larghetto cellist Laura van der Heijden gives a gentle account of the opening melody, and the following interplay between strings and pianist Tom Poster has a nice elegance to it. There is urgent, dramatic playing in the final Allegro molto, which features an up-tempo fugue on a folk-like theme. The recording is clear and warm.

TIM HOMFRAY

HAYDN Piano Trios vol.1: no.20

HobXV:7, no.23, HobXV:10, no.32, HobXV:18, no.38, HobXV:24, no.40, HobXV:26. FISCHER one bar wonder (HobXV:7 remixed)

Gaspard Trio

CHANDOS CHAN20244

There’s much to applaud in this new exploration of the piano trios

The launch of a new series of Haydn piano trios is always reason to be cheerful. The Gaspard Trio starts at the end, with three trios from the mid-1790s, along with a pair from a decade earlier, closing its programme with a ‘precise and relentless’ response to a phrase from HobXV:7 by Johannes Julius Fischer (born 1981) that will either amuse or annoy, depending on your disposition.

It’s all too easy to dismiss Haydn’s trios as keyboard works with string parts doubling the right and left hands to the extent that they are all but dispensable. That’s to miss the point of this infectiously spirited and inexhaustibly inventive music.

A recorded balance (at Potton Hall in Suffolk) that catches the glint off the violin and cello but smooths off the attack of the piano serves to demonstrate how much the reverse is true: this is music conceived for strings, which just happen to be doubled by the piano.

This series is clearly a cherished one for the German–British Gaspard Trio and the delight the players take in Haydn’s audacious music is audible, especially at moments such as the gawky finale of HobXV:18 in A major or the faster music of the two earlier works, clearly composed to entertain. So, too, is their sensitivity to passages such as the F sharp major Adagio of HobXV:26, the one that Haydn recast a semitone lower as the corresponding movement of his Symphony no.102; equally, the way the violin and cello dig into the strings as the sweetness drains from the closing Allegro, ma dolce of HobXV:24. It’s truly a delight, and leaves this listener hungry for more.

DAVID THREASHER

CHAMBER MUSIC FOR VIOLA JUON Sonatas: in D major op.15, in F minor op.82a; Romance op.7a, Silhouettes op.43, Trio-Miniaturen Basil Vendryes (viola) Igor Pikayzen (violin) William David (piano)

TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0389

Ardent readings put Juon’s viola music in the spotlight

Born in Moscow to Swiss parents, Paul Juon (1872–1940) taught composition at the Berlin Hochschule, from which he had graduated, following earlier studies in Moscow with Arensky and Taneyev.

His music provides an intriguing mix of Russian-inspired melodic material given a thorough formal work-out in the Germanic manner.

Juon’s D major Viola Sonata (1901) is an excellent example of his compositional ways. A rousingly Tchaikovskyan theme soars in the viola above pulsating piano syncopations sets the work in motion. There’s a Brahmsian quality to elements of the writing, particularly evident in the slow movement. This is replaced, in the finale, by a Slavic accent.

From over 20 years later comes the F minor Sonata, an idiomatic arrangement by the composer of a clarinet work conceived in one multi-sectional movement rich in rhythmic legerdemain. The Romance op.7b, excerpted from Juon’s First Violin Sonata, is one of those insidious tunes that, once heard, is difficult to get out of one’s head.

Basil Vendryes, long-time principal of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, draws a well-focused, attractive tone from his 1887\ Ceruti viola and is an engaging advocate of this music. In complete musical accord with pianist William David, his clear-headed readings gently underline this composer’s special qualities. The duo is joined by the stylish Igor Pikayzen for two series of vignettes redolent of the salons from pre-revolutionary Russia, making a lovely conclusion to this well-recorded recital.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

RICERCARE KVANDAL String Trio op.12

MORTENSEN Trio op.3 BRÆIN Trio op.15 JOHANSEN Ricercare Ssens Trio

LAWO CLASSICS LWC 1238

Beautifully balanced readings of a quartet of Norwegian trios

The Ssens Trio (pronounced ‘essence’) makes a good case for these four string trios by Norwegian composers active in the postwar years. Johan Kvandal’s Trio of 1950 is the most conservative of the bunch, marrying a Shostakovich-like guile with a hint of folk-nationalism, all firmly diatonic and/or modal but not devoid of charm. Finn Mortensen’s Trio from the same year is tonally more free-ranging – indeed its composer went on to champion Schoenbergian dodecaphony later in the decade. A more caustic Shostakovich rears his head again in Edvard Fliflet Bræin’s singlemovement Trio, probably written in the 1960s but maybe earlier.

With Bertil Palmar Johansen’s Ricercare we move on a generation or more and to a work written for the Leopold String Trio in 1996; it’s the knottiest of the pieces here but in its greater emotional depth also makes the most telling use of the textural capabilities of the three stringed instruments.

Recorded in a supportive but not over-resonant church acoustic, these are all very well-judged performances that bring out the individual characteristics of each composer.

Texturally, the three players sound evenly balanced and their individual focus and technical acuity all come across in the punchiness and crispness of attack while at the same time giving voice to the expressive lyricism shared by all four pieces.

MATTHEW RYE

MOZART The ‘Palatine’ Sonatas: Violin Sonatas: in G major K301, in E flat major K302, in C major K303, in E minor K304, in A major K305, in D major K306

Peter Sheppard Skærved (violin)

Daniel-Ben Pienaar (piano)

DIVINE ART ATH23212

An impressive partnership brings charm to youthful Mozart sonatas

A particular feature of these periodinformed performances, and of the recording, is the changing balance between instruments. (Peter Sheppard Skærved provides an excellent booklet essay on the subject.) In the pacy first movement of the G major Sonata there are lively conversations between the players.

The second movement Allegro has naïve charm. There is bright tone and vivid phrasing in the opening Allegro of the E flat major Sonata, and vocal phrasing in the following Rondeau, with various varieties of staccato. They play the first movement of the C major Sonata with rhythmic freedom, the effect is relaxed and fun.

There are many contrasts in the E minor Sonata, thoughtful at one point, confident and outgoing in the next, with the pulse changing along the way. The Menuetto is graceful, tentative after the piano’s mini cadenza and prayerful in the switch to E major. In the Allegro di molto of the A major Sonata there is irresistible joie de vivre and fine dovetailing of dynamics between instruments. In the variations there is the feeling that dance is never very far away. The first movement of the D major Sonata goes at a good pace, with the players almost chasing each other, while the Andantino has an air of joint improvisation and the final Allegretto rounds matters off with a musical smile.

TIM HOMFRAY

PIANI 12 Sonate a Violino solo e Violoncello col Cimbalo op.1

Pierluigi Mencattini (violin)

Labirinto Armonico

TACTUS TC 671690 (2 CDS)

Problematic tuning and inauthentic instrumentation dog these sonatas

A two-disc set of Piani’s op.1 violin sonatas, with their ground-breaking specific performance annotations for ornamentation, articulation and expression, would normally be warmly welcomed; but this release falls short on many counts. Pierluigi Mencattini’s variable accuracy, suspect intonation, slack rhythmic execution and lean, predominantly on-thestring violin tone will not find favour with many listeners; nor will his apparent inability effectively to shape the line with any natural fluency, particularly in the ornate opening Preludios. His technical limitations and the introduction of countless textual infidelities in terms of bowing and dynamic nuance fail to support Tactus’s claim that his interpretations fully respect Piani’s intentions.

The six-strong Labirinto Armonico exploits a wide range of continuo instruments far beyond the prescribed cello and cimbalo. Galileo di Ilio’s cello playing is largely well to the fore and the sporadic archlute accompaniments of Sergio Basilico are imaginatively executed, notably in the Sarabanda of no.3 and the Poco andante of no.12; but the movements employing a full complement of instruments, such as the Corrente of no.3 and the Preludio of no.6, sound uncomfortably heavy.

Moreover, the close, over-resonant recording tends to emphasise the unrelenting nature of much of the playing. Although the inclusion of tambourines and other percussion instruments in, for example, the finales of nos.2, 4, 8, 10 and 12 enlivens the violin playing somewhat, it has no historical justification.

ROBIN STOWELL

LOST LANDSCAPES RAUTAVAARA Fantasia; In the Beginning; Deux Sérénades;

Lost Landscapes Simone Lamsma (violin) Malmö

Symphony Orchestra/Robert Trevino

ONDINE ODE 1405-2

Persuasive readings conjure the vast vistas of this Finnish magician

If, like me, you wish you encountered the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara (1928–2016) more often, then read on. If not, then also read on, because this vividly captured programme might yet convert you.

Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma and conductor Robert Trevino have selected repertoire from the last decade of the Finnish composer’s life, with the three violin works – Fantasia (2015), Deux Sérénades (2016/18) and Lost Landscapes (2005/2014) – written respectively for Anne Akiko Meyers, Hilary Hahn and Midori.

Lamsma has a connection of her own, though, because it was she, with the Malmö orchestra, who premiered the full-strings version of Lost Landscapes last year. Her big-boned, richly toned power and her control are a perfect match for Rautavaara’s distinctive lushly scored, neo- Romantic sound. Time and again I found myself appreciating the way her lines unfurled over a vast, slowly circling, rumbling and shimmering orchestral landscape: outwardly warm and sweet-toned, but with a steely-strong central core. Equally notable is the richness of her sound in the lower register, which she exploits potently in the Fantasia.

The orchestra’s pure-toned lucidity is effectively illustrated in the premiere recording of In the Beginning, in which

slowly shifting strings, woodwind arabesques and brass chorales carry shades of Swans Migrating.

CHARLOTTE GARDNER

TANEYEV String Trio op.31;

Piano Quartet op.20

Spectrum Concerts Berlin

NAXOS 8 574367

Compelling accounts of a Russian Romantic who revered the Classical era

Unlike Tchaikovsky, who composed his best music in a flood of cathartic inspiration, or Mussorgsky, whose wildest imaginings were generally fuelled by alcohol, the abstemious Taneyev was a solid musical architect who worked methodically within well-tried and tested parameters. His music possesses a structural sweep that the balletic leanings of much Russian symphonic music of the period can barely match. His mastery of counterpoint and Brahmsian thematic integration also stand in stark contrast to the prevailing tendency towards melodic radiance. Little wonder that his pupil Sergei Rachmaninoff considered him ‘the personification of truth on Earth’.

Taneyev’s chamber output is especially distinguished, including nine completed string quartets, and four string trios, a genre that was generally bypassed by mainstream Romantic composers. The last of these, op.31 in E flat major, was originally intended for violin, viola and tenor viola, a rare instrument tuned an octave below the violin.

Today a cello is invariably used in performance, as on this recording.

Taneyev bucks the Russian tendency to fall back on Schumannesque models, learning far more from Beethoven and Brahms. Violinist Boris Brovtsyn, violist Gareth Lubbe and cellist Alexey Stadler make a strong case for this neglected score.

They are joined by Eldar Nebolsin for an impassioned performance of Taneyev’s op.20 Piano Quartet, which is far closer to Schumann’s chamber style. Once again, Taneyev’s focus on taut structures is impressive.

The recording bathes the players in a gentle sonic glow.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

ALONE TOGETHER Music by Grieg, Pärt, Barber, Popper, Casals, Kengel, Ceronna, Reid, Gosfield, Young and Hearne Johannes Moser (cello, electric cello)

Anthony Hewitt (piano)

PLATOON

Multitracking brought to a new level of invention by this thoughtful cellist

We probably shouldn’t be surprised at something of a surfeit of pandemicinspired solo and multitracked recordings, as string players grapple with the implications – and creative opportunities – of Covid-caused separation from others. Austrian–

Canadian cellist Johannes Moser, however, has clearly been thinking harder than many about those implications, as he reveals in this stuffed-full, freewheeling and joyfully eclectic release.

His premise is simple enough: he has made multi-cello arrangements of existing music, and commissioned new solo works from young composers to weave among them. It’s the sheer ambition of the results that really impresses, though – from (among the arrangements) the keening richness of Moser’s energetic all-cello rethink of Grieg’s Holberg Suite to sheer emotional intensity in a harrowingly intense Barber Adagio. His two Arvo Pärt inclusions – the eight-cello Fratres, and Spiegel im Spiegel with pianist Anthony Hewitt – feel fairly brisk, but show off Moser’s gloriously flexible, expressive playing superbly.

It’s also quite uncanny how Moser maintains such an expressive rhythmic suppleness across the tracks where he’s essentially playing against himself.

If anyone were expecting hushed, tormented pandemic pieces from Moser’s commissions, they’d be rather shocked by the bold, brash, in-your-face results. Admittedly, Timo Andres builds up gently luminous textures in his melancholy Ogee, and Ellen Reid’s Somewhere there is something else highlights Moser’s delicacy in its compendium of sounds seemingly cast into space.

But Annie Gosfield finds fascinating interconnections between Moser’s lyrical, keening cello melodies and radio static in her captivating Ghost Radios & Audio Mirages, while Ted Hearne’s standout Lobby Music is a hyperactive, hyper-energised assault of disconcerting hyper-pop that draws the most flamboyant, extrovert playing from Moser on the disc – and, frankly, stops you in your tracks.

There’s a lot to take in, and the restless shifts in style and mood between tracks are sometimes refreshing, sometimes frustrating.

But there’s no questioning Moser’s ambition, nor the sheer sense of verve with which he pulls it all off.

DAVID KETTLE

CHRISTIAN FERRAS:

THE SWR RECORDINGS BEETHOVEN Violin Sonatas: in F major op.24 (‘Spring’), in A major op.47 ‘Kreutzer’; Violin Concerto in D major op.61 BERG Violin Concerto BRAHMS Violin Concerto in D major op.77 DEBUSSY Violin Sonata in G minor ENESCU Violin Sonata no.3 in A minor op.25 RAVEL Tzigane SCHUMANN Violin Sonata no.2 in D minor op.121 TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto in D major op.35

Christian Ferras (violin)

Pierre Barbizet (piano)

Stuttgart RSO/Hans Müller-Kray, Michael Gielen; Baden-Baden RSO/Herbert Blomstedt

SWR CLASSIC 19114 (4 CDS)

A fitting, if mixed, tribute to one of the great violinists of the 20th century

One of the great lost hopes of the postwar Franco-Belgian school, Christian Ferras (1933–82) enjoyed two decades when it seemed that, with his beautiful tone and superb technique, he could do no wrong; but in his last years, personal demons overcame him, leading to tragedy.So, although nothing is added to his discography, this box of 1953–72 German Radio recordings is welcome.

Recitals from 1953 and 1959 feature his regular duo with Pierre Barbizet. The outer movements of the 1953 ‘Kreutzer’ are a tad careful, lacking the joy in virtuosity that Beethoven and the sonata’s dedicatee George Bridgetower must have aimed for, though the central variations are fine. The Frenchmen are on happier ground in the 1959 ‘Spring’, with well-balanced, lyrical playing, although they short-change the wit of the Scherzo – sample Busch and Serkin in both sonatas.

With the 1953 Debussy Sonata and Ravel Tzigane, we have the very best of the duo, with utter perfection of style, taste, vision and accomplishment, in pretty good sound. This vein is continued in the Third Sonata by Enescu, Ferras’s most revered teacher: it is difficult to fault this marvellous, stylistically aware, well-recorded interpretation.

Only a select few greats have tackled Schumann’s mighty D minor Sonata. Enescu left it a bit late, but the Busch-Serkin duo were captured at their peak. Ferras and Barbizet convey the heroic stature of the opening movement, the restless mood of the second, the intensity of the third and the vital impetus of finale, making for a high level of satisfaction.

In the 1954 account of the Beethoven concerto, Ferras and Hans Müller-Kray are equally to blame for too slow a tempo in the opening movement, and Ferras lacks the penetration and intensity of artists such as Busch and Kogan in the Larghetto. The same conductor is unhelpful in the Tchaikovsky, especially in the first movement: this work was better served three months later with Constantin Silvestri for EMI. (I am not enthusiastic about any of Ferras’s super-sleek recordings with Karajan, by the way.)

The fourth disc brings us back to the best of Ferras, with a thoroughly enjoyable Brahms well conducted in 1972 by Herbert Blomstedt, one slightly sticky passage in the Adagio apart. The finale is at Joachim’s tempo rather than what Brahms originally wanted, but it has a good impetus. Even better is the 1970 Berg with Michael Gielen, carefully prepared and lovingly executed: this is the finest of the three Ferras performances I know, and one of the best interpretations by anyone, caught in excellent sound.

TULLY POTTER

HERMITAGE OF THRUSHES Stephen Nachmanovitch (violin, electric violin, viola d’amore, electronics)

BLUE CLIFF RECORDS BCR 20A

Birdsong reinvented with panache by this American multi-tasker

US violinist–violist and composer Stephen Nachmanovitch has long been a passionate advocate of musical improvisation. So it should probably come as no surprise that there’s a freewheeling, spontaneous personality to the ten tracks on this gloriously sunny, open-air CD.

There’s a certain improvisatory aptness, too, to the surprise that Nachmanovitch admits at finding himself the latest in a long line of composers drawing on birdsong for inspiration – in this case, recording chirrups and tweets from the Virginia woods near his home during lockdown, and transforming the recordings into fresh, vividly imagined pieces alongside his own violin (electric or acoustic) or viola.

And despite sometimes quite radical sonic transformations, there’s a sense of freedom and woodland airiness to everything here, matched by the suppleness of Nachmanovitch’s

own string playing. The opening ‘Quintet for Viola and Thrush’ is one of the CD’s most ambitious tracks, with Nachmanovitch weaving rich, raga-like viola lines in and among four multi-tracked wood thrush songs. Its collision of earthy, organic sounds and more clinical and austere electronic manipulations gives the music its paradoxical quality of being captivating and somehow unsettling at the same time, a sense that pervades the disc. The Messiaeninspired ‘Tapage’ is perhaps less convincing in its bluesy, jazzy, sax-like melody, while ‘Sprig’ is the only track in which Nachmanovitch actively aims to imitate his avian musical colleagues, with compelling results. He ends the disc with the calm contemplation of the Feldmaninspired ‘Interleaf ’, with thoughtful articulation and pitch bending in his multi-layered violin and viola lines.

In line with Nachmanovitch’s credentials as an improviser, the album feels like a heartfelt, honest, somewhat raw response to a passing moment in time, and as such is something surely to be cherished.

DAVID KETTLE

SHINING NIGHT Works by Bach, Brouwer, Corelli, Creatore, Ellington, Lauridsen, Paganini, Peretti, Piazzolla, Ponce, Villa-Lobos and Wiss Anne Akiko Meyers (violin) Jason Vieaux (guitar) Fabio Badini (piano)

AVIE AV2455

A legendary ‘del Gesù’ takes centre stage in this wide-ranging recital

Despite some deliciously cool moments along the way, more suggestive of Paris’s Hot Club c.1930 than Zimmermann’s Leipzig coffee shop c.1730, the combination of Anne Akiko Meyers’s glorious 1741 ‘ex-Vieuxtemps’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ and the magical, piquant tracery of Jason Vieaux’s 2013 Gernot Wagner guitar, feels slightly unbalanced in traditional territory. This is most noticeable in the works by Bach, Correllia, Paganini and Villa-Lobos.

Elsewhere, the guitar becomes such an integral part of the music’s texture that it becomes difficult to imagine it played any other way.

You immediately sense the cultural gear-change with Duke Ellington’s In My Solitude, given by Meyers with a sultry eloquence. Piazzolla’s Histoire du Tango is also beautifully judged, with one foot placed firmly in the concert hall, and blessedly free of Grappelli caricature. Vieaux’s exquisitely shaped introductions to ‘Café 1930’ and the Elvis Presley/

Andy Williams hit Can’t Help Falling in Love are two further highlights of the album. So, too, is a specially commissioned piece by Leo Brouwer entitled Laude al Árbol Gigante.

Pianist Fabio Badini joins Meyers for Manuel Ponce’s Estrellita, which is shaped with intuitive grace and charm. To finish, two gently reflective pieces by Morten Lauridsen.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

VIOLIN ODYSSEY Itamar Zorman (violin)

Ieva Jokubaviciute, Kwan Yi (piano)

Julia Thompson (tambourine)

FIRST HAND RECORDS FHR 119

Violinistic byways brought to life with élan in this lockdown project

Winner of the 2011 International Tchaikovsky Competition, Israeliborn violinist Itamar Zorman presented an online concert series during the pandemic, Hidden Gems, exploring lesser-known repertoire from around the world. Violin Odyssey is a selection of ten tracks from that series, representing composers from Sudan to Mexico and New Zealand.

One of the three focal points is the set of eight movements adapted for violin and piano by Heifetz from the Children’s Suite for solo piano by Russian-born US émigré composer Joseph Achron. Zorman captures a folk flavour and simple innocence redolent of Bartók’s Six Romanian Dances, not least in the spirited ‘Jumping with tongue out’, the delicate warbling and trilling of ‘Birdies’ and the mock-pompous Stravinskyan ‘March of the Toys’ with its heavy drone. Erwin Schulhoff’s Second Violin Sonata is another of the focal pieces, Zorman highlighting its darker, slightly more craggy expression. There’s rich expression in Dora Pejačević’s Slavic Sonata op.43, but here the violin is sometimes unable to compete fully with the piano, which is forwardly balanced within the recording.

The disc also features pieces by Bacewicz, Revueltas, Gao Ping, Ali Osman and Itamar’s father, Moshe, as well as William Grant Still’s achingly nostalgic Summerland and Gareth Farr’s technically challenging but musically rewarding Wakatipu.

EDWARD BHESANIA