RECORDINGS

HOMMAGE À J.S.B.

BACH Partita no.2 BWV1004

AUERBACH Lonely Suite; works by Biber, Kurtág, Schnittke and Winkelman Jonian Ilias Kadesha (violin)

LINN CKD676

Bach is the star in this ambitious concept album

As one third of the Gaspard Trio, this Greek–Albanian violinist has recorded Lera Auerbach’s Postscriptum within a ‘Russian Roots’ programme for Chandos, but there’s no Slavic edge to his playing of her Lonely Suite here. Indeed, whether written c.1676 (Biber’s Passacaglia) or in 2002 (Helena Winkelman’s Ciaccona), the works on this concept album are unified by Jonian Ilias Kadesha’s pure tone, hair-trigger dynamics and uncanny powers of musical storytelling. The engineering enhances haunted-house vibes of stillness but never deadness.

The functional booklet essay rather leaves the concept itself to our imagination, however. There’s nothing especially Bachian about the thrice-iterated Perpetuum mobile by Kurtág or Winkelman’s funky modern-Baroque swing unless it be a common heritage in Italianate (specifically Corellian) virtuosity.

In Kadesha’s hands, the inexorable momentum of Schnittke’s Fugue recalls Bach less than the balletic poise of Biber.

Where the album does live up to its title is in a remarkable account of the D minor Partita. Without the safety net of vibrato, tone this sweet and intonation this true are rare indeed.

Eschewing the unadorned phrasing of Ibragimova and tonal extremes of Kopatchinskaja, Kadesha’s Bach nevertheless belongs with them in the top tier of distinctively 21st-century responses to Baroque rhetoric. The Chaconne must be among the quickest on record, yet there is no feeling of haste about Kadesha’s dramatic leap from the quicksilver patter of the Gigue, or the relaxed heartbeat of his spread chords for the theme. It’s all in the dynamics, such as the audacious, almost whispered incantation of the cross-string section.

PETER QUANTRILL

BARTÓK Sonata for solo violin LIGETI Sonata for solo viola VERESS Sonata for solo violin EÖTVÖS Adventures of the Dominant Seventh Chord Nurit Stark (violin, viola)

BIS BIS-2416

Hungarian treats offered with plenty of pizzazz

Alongside its all-Hungarian, all-solo instrument track list, there’s also a thread of teacher–student connections bringing together the music on this compelling disc from Israeli-born Nurit Stark. Béla Bartók taught Sándor Veress, who taught György Ligeti, who might not have directly taught Peter Eötvös but nonetheless recommended him for a place at Budapest’s Liszt Academy.

More importantly, however, Stark’s own assertive, driven, richly flavoured interpretations provide another unifying thread through this colourful and diverse repertoire.

She sets out her fantastical yet carefully considered approach right from the opening ‘Chaconne’ of the Bartók Sonata, bathed in lavish rubato and eloquent decoration, but never lacking in forward movement.

There’s some exquisitely beautiful playing in her thoughtful ‘Melodia’ slow movement, while her dashing finale is full of explosive energy.

Ligeti’s Solo Viola Sonata offers even more opportunities for flamboyant exuberance, which Stark conveys in the ear-bending microtones of its opening ‘Hora lungă’ and the buoyant cascades of notes in its breathless ‘Prestissimo con sordino’.

Veress’s 1935 Solo Violin Sonata might be the most traditional work here, but it’s also the one in which Stark seems to have the most fun, in the full-throated gypsy abandon of its slow movement and the volatile, unpredictable rhythms of its whirling finale. She’s clearly got under the skin, too, of Adventures of the Dominant Seventh Chord (written for her by Eötvös in 2019) and charts a confident course through its restless, often humorous moods.

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

This is a thoroughly rewarding disc whose big-boned performances are an ideal match for its often larger-than-life repertoire, all of it captured in close, detailed sound.

DAVID KETTLE

BEETHOVEN Cello Sonatas op.102;

Bagatelles: op.119, op.126

Roel Dieltiens (cello)

Andreas Staier (fortepiano)

HARMONIA MUNDI HMM 902429

Period instruments used to telling effect in late Beethoven

By presenting Beethoven’s last two cello sonatas alone, rather than as part of a cycle, Roel Dieltiens and Andreas Staier draw attention to their questing, transitory nature. Dating from 1815, they sit at the meeting point of the composer’s middle and late styles, at a time when he was distilling and streamlining his language and seeking new modes of expression, free from the prevailing rhetoric of the accompanied sonata. Dieltiens and Staier emphasise the questing nature especially of the C major Sonata (no.4), taking a quizzical approach to its oblique progress.

The choice of instruments helps.

Dieltiens’s cello is a copy of a Stradivari, played with a bow modelled after John Dodd, and Staier plays a fortepiano based on an 1827 Graf, a piquant choice that comes into its own in the solo Bagatelles.

In the sonatas the two sound worlds are brought closer together, their narrower amplitude (compared with modern instruments) enabling conversational equality – in the fugal section of the D major Sonata (no.5), for instance – without either ever becoming unduly dominant. With less concern for tonal consistency across the range, the palette of colours is enhanced: hushed pianissimos from both instruments that make you hold your breath, and a panoply of cello voices ranging from gruffness to a truly singing cantabile. The microphones move in close enough to pick up some fingerboard and action noises but not so close as to limit the bloom around the two instruments. These are performances that make you listen with refreshed ears to these ever-fascinating works.

DAVID THREASHER

BEETHOVEN String Quartets: in A minor op.132, F major op.135

Ehnes Quartet

ONYX 4227

A powerful final volume from a magnificent quartet

Regular readers of these columns will doubtless have noted the glowing endorsements of the Ehnes Quartet’s previous releases in its late Beethoven project. This reverberant, yet fastidiously balanced final instalment allows these players to communicate their fresh and sometimes daring insights into the radical modernism of opp.132 and 135. Their accounts can scarcely be surpassed in terms of natural synchrony, timbral range, blend, textual fidelity and sheer musicality.

This is potently evident in the group’s interpretation of op.132’s core central movement, in which the serene Heiliger Dankgesang is given initially with sparing vibrato, contrasting effectively with two animated episodes reflecting ‘renewed strength’; James Ehnes’s thoughtfully etched elaborations and expressive cantabile are particularly noteworthy. The remainder of the work is just as outstandingly characterised, not least the stark contrasts of the opening, the lilting quasi-waltz and rustic ‘trio’ that follows, the jaunty Alla marcia and the restless finale, culminating in an intense, aggressive Presto and an exhilarating coda.

Similarly, op.135’s countless changes of mood are encompassed with freshness and subtlety, whether in the conversational opening Allegretto, the syncopated dislocations and Ehnes’s athletic leaps in the scherzo and trio, the variations on the poignant ‘song of peace’ or the very end of the quartet, juxtaposing humour and absolute despair.

ROBIN STOWELL

UWE ARENS

BRAHMS Cello Sonatas: no.1 in E minor, no.2 in F major; Seven Songs (arr. Slater and Geringas)

Antonio Meneses (cello)

Gérard Wyss (piano)

AVIE AV2493

Contemplative Brahms from a Brazilian master

In this account, the first dozen or so bars of Brahms’s First Cello Sonata, amiable and introspective, could almost be a lullaby. Meneses, with his rich, brown, woody sound remains unhurried, expansive and always lyrical, even as the drama hots up, but he is suitably thrilling at the climax.

The second-movement Allegretto remains easy-going and good-natured, with a languid trio. The fugue that opens the finale comes almost as a shock, full of energy and purpose, with the balance between contrapuntal voices finely done.

The jubilant, heroic opening of the Second Sonata is balanced by gentle musing; the short passage between the mysterious bariolage and the return of the opening is beautifully graded. The long opening of the Adagio affettuoso is played as if sung in one breath, its contours subtly sculpted and imbued with a kind of resigned anguish. The central F major section of the Allegro passionato is another plaintive song, as is the opening of the finale – and here, as so often, there is a steadiness to the playing, refined, expressive and full of easy charm. Between the sonatas comes a selection of song arrangements, mostly at the slow, contemplative end of the spectrum, all played with tender loving care. The recorded sound is warm and spacious.

TIM HOMFRAY

BRIDGE Cello Sonata in D minor (arr.Clément); There Is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook (arr. Britten); Three Songs BRITTEN Elegy; Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of John Dowland op.46

Hélène Clément (viola) Sarah Connolly (mezzo-soprano)

Alasdair Beatson (piano)

CHANDOS CHAN 20247

A compelling recital inspired by a celebrated instrument

In 2018, Hélène Clément, violist in the Doric Quartet, was lent an 1843

Francesco Giussani viola. Frank Bridge had given the viola to his former pupil Benjamin Britten as a parting gift when the younger composer headed for the US in 1939.

These associations and its distinct, rather mellow sound have effectively inspired the present programme, though Clément has had to be creative in accumulating a whole disc’s worth of music by the two composers in making her own viola transcription of Bridge’s Cello Sonata. (It is strange, however, that she hasn’t included two Bridge miniatures mentioned in the booklet notes.) The sonata is the most substantial piece here and works convincingly on the higher instrument, especially as espoused in searing playing from both Clément and Alasdair Beatson, its plangency extending into Britten’s viola-andpiano arrangement of Bridge’s touching string-orchestra miniature There Is a Willow Grows aslant a Brook.

Mezzo Sarah Connolly brings acute verbal insight to a trio of Bridge’s songs including viola (à la Brahms), setting sombre poems by Arnold, Heine (in translation) and Shelley, and the melancholy continues in the tonally elusive Elegy that Britten wrote for his instrument at the age of 16 and his mature masterpiece for the instrument, Lachrymae, both captivatingly played in this excellent Potton Hall recording.

MATTHEW RYE

CHOPIN Cello Sonata RACHMANINOFF Cello Sonata Jean-Guihen Queyras (cello)

Alexander Melnikov (piano)

HARMONIA MUNDI HMM 902643

Two Romantic masterpieces cast in a new light

Coupling these two Romantic masterpieces of the cello literature makes sense, and is replicated in several outstanding recordings from artists as diverse as Paul Tortelier, Alisa Weilerstein and Natalie Clein.

But the present warmly recorded release scores a distinct advantage with Alexander Melnikov’s inspired decision to use an 1858 Érard for the Chopin. So often, Chopin’s fulltextured piano part can get in the way of the cello. But here clarity and balance are in perfect accord.

Naturally, you also need the spectacularly light right hand that Melnikov displays, shaping but never obscuring the cello line. Equally, Jean-Guihen Queyras elicits an exquisite range of nuance, but is not afraid to power ahead for the swooning melodies and passionate climaxes (such as the ascending scales at the end of first movement’s exposition and recapitulation).

The Scherzo’s winning melody at the shift to a major key is marvellously rich and fervent, and the Largo mercurially magical in its yearning.

In the booklet notes Queyras refers to Melnikov’s magical touch, and this mastery allows what is sometimes written off as a Rachmaninoff piano concerto with cello obbligato to become a supreme triumph. The music twists and turns with amazingly varied colours, be it blisteringly passionate, or inwardly brooding. Indeed, this performance has everything, from its captivating Andante to a finale whose passion is carefully choreographed but never at the expense of exhilaration.

JOANNE TALBOT

THE DVOŘÁK ALBUM (MORITZBURG FESTIVAL)

DVOŘÁKPiano Quartet no.2 in E flat major 2345; Piano Trio in E minor ‘Dumky’

1 46; Scherzo (Terzetto in C major) 123;

Gypsy Song op.55 no.4 (arr. cello and piano)45; Humoresque op.101 no.7 6

Chad Hoopes¹, Kevin Zhu² (violins)

Matthew Lipman³ (viola) Jan Vogler⁴ (cello) Juho Pohjonen⁵, Tiffany Poon⁶ (piano)

SONY CLASSICAL DDD 2021

A fascinating snapshot of Dvořák from a Saxony festival

This CD claims to tell the story of Dvořák’s chamber music, although it opens with the fourth of his Gypsy Songs arranged for cello and piano, played with appropriate feeling by Jan Vogler. A violent opening outburst to the E flat major Piano Quartet no.2 sets up playing of constant vivid contrasts and biting, hard-edged drama, leavened by passages of vibrato-rich warmth.

The emotional energy is maintained in the Lento, from Vogler’s yearning opening melody through to the ferocious outbreak of C sharp minor.

In the Allegro moderato the musicians evoke the schmaltzy world of Viennese coffee houses, and the finale offers a jaunty resolution to earlier tensions.

After the Scherzo from Dvořák’s Terzetto, with a graceful trio, comes the ‘Dumky’ Piano Trio. There is passion and fierce joy in the opening Lento maestoso, and the Poco adagio is mournfully elegiac. Vogler is to the fore here and in both the following movements, moulding his solos beautifully. Violinist Kevin Zhu brings vivid G-string tragedy to the final Lento maestoso. Throughout the trio, the switches between song and dance are finely done. The album ends with a dainty account of the seventh Humoresque from Tiffany Poon. The recorded sound is close and clear.

TIM HOMFRAY

FANNY MENDELSSOHN Piano Trio op.11; Piano Quartet FELIX MENDELSSOHN Piano Sextet op.110

Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective

CHANDOS CHAN 20256

Compelling performances of two remarkable siblings

Fanny Mendelssohn’s D minor Piano Trio plunges the listener straight into harmonic turmoil and swirling piano figuration in a manner not dissimilar to the trios in the same key by her brother and his friend Robert Schumann. A pair of slower central movements – an Andante espressivo and a brief Lied – demonstrate her individual way with melody and piquant harmony, while the finale is a piano-led virtuoso romp to the finish. It would be a remarkable piece even if her name hadn’t been Mendelssohn (and if such creative endeavours from women hadn’t been frowned upon at the time). It was the last of her works to be performed in her lifetime, little over a month before her death at the age of 42.

On the other hand, the lighterhearted piano quartet is a student piece, composed when Fanny was 17, an inexperience betrayed by slightly foursquare phrasing and some fleeting technical awkwardness.

Nevertheless, she was clearly a pianist of formidable ability and a composer of notable single-mindedness. The Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective makes no concessions in its wholly committed advocacy of both works.

In the conducive surroundings of Potton Hall in Suffolk, pianist Tom Poster’s fingers fly thrillingly but never at the risk of obscuring his string colleagues.

Felix’s Sextet for piano and strings is also a teenage work, composed when he was 15. Already his individual voice is evident, for all that Mozart is a clear guiding spirit at moments such as the first movement’s second subject; additionally, for all the similarities of scoring, the Sextet never occupies the same sound world as Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet. The Kaleidoscope players clearly have a whale of a time and keep matters admirably light – no mean feat for a work scored for only one violin with a pair of violas, cello, bass and piano. Delicious.

DAVID THREASHER

RIES Piano Trio in C minor op.143;

Grand Sextet in C major op.100;

Sextet in G minor op.142; Introduction and a Russian Dance op.113 no.1

Nash Ensemble HYPERION CDA68380

Exhilarating recordings of chamber-musical byways

In his early maturity, Ferdinand Ries was one of Beethoven’s closest associates, as both piano pupil and amanuensis. He later carved out a lucrative career as a virtuoso pianist, often starring in performances of his own compositions, now relegated to relative obscurity. London audiences were especially captivated by the ‘romantic wildness’ of his playing, a characteristic that is amply replicated by both pianists featured on this disc. Benjamin Frith demonstrates virtuosity in abundance, partnering cellist Adrian Brendel in the Introduction and a Russian Dance and joining the unusual instrumentarium (piano, harp, clarinet, bassoon, horn, double bass) for the op.142 Sextet’s kaleidoscopic timbral combinations and lively Hungarian finale, all persuasively delivered.

The other pianist, Simon Crawford-Phillips, stands out in the Grand Sextet op.100, and skilfully negotiates a demanding concertante role in the opening movement and takes the lead in the central Andante’s intricate variations on the Irish ballad ‘The Last Rose of Summer’. The limelight is apportioned more equably in the rondo finale and in the first two movements of the Piano Trio op.143, in which Brendel and violinist Stephanie Gonley contribute melodic, expressive roles realised with taste and discernment; however, Crawford-Phillips provides most of the fireworks in the Trio’s exhilarating finale. The clear, clean recordings seem largely balanced in favour of the piano.

ROBIN STOWELL

SECRET LOVE LETTERS Works by Franck, Szymanowski, Chausson and Debussy Lisa Batiashvili (violin)

Philadelphia Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (piano) Giorgi Gigashvili (piano)

DG 4860462

An eclectic programme, drawn together by stunning musicianship

The title of Lisa Batiashvili’s latest release may appear initially to have no connection with Franck’s Violin Sonata (with which she opens), until you recall it was written as a wedding gift for the dedicatee Eugène Ysaÿe.

As is often the case with late Romantic violin sonatas, it has a dazzling piano part that goes way beyond the violin’s in terms of technical difficulty and Batiashvili is fortunate to have Giorgi Gigashvili at the keyboard: he ensures that Franck’s subtle rhythmic and harmonic inflections emerge with clarity from the middle register.

Theirs is a high-octane reading, with the two players conveying the sensuality of the first and third movements, and revelling in the sonata’s virtuoso exuberance, not least in their thrilling acceleration to the final double-bar.

Again, Batiashvili could hardly wish for more attentive musical partners in Szymanowski’s First Concerto and Chausson’s Poème than the Philadelphians on ravishing form under Yannick Nézet-Séguin (who, as pianist, joins her for Debussy’s Beau soir). If the modern tendency is to exaggerate dynamic range (particularly at the lower end of the spectrum), Batiashvili here sounds temperamentally closer to, say, Rabin, Stern or Perlman, as she soars freely aloft without the slightest hint of inhibition. The DG engineers have captured her in beautifully detailed sound. These may be studio recordings, but they convey a sense of living exultantly in the moment.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

48 STRINGS: MUSIC FOR ONE, TWO, FOUR AND TWELVE CELLOS PIATTI 12 Caprices op.25 POPPER Suite for two cellos op. 16

FITZENHAGEN Concert Waltzes for four cellos op.31 KLENGEL Hymnus for 12 cellos op.57

Andreas Brantelid, Ingemar Brantelid (cellos) and friends

NAXOS 8.754310

Cello virtuosity elevated to high art through compelling musicality

It’s a brave cellist who lays their technique bare by recording Piatti’s 12 Caprices, cornerstones of advanced cello training. All unaccompanied, there is nowhere to hide, and no let-up in extreme technical difficulty.

Brantelid more than meets the challenge, not only producing flawless examples of high-tessitura octaves, rapid arpeggiated cross-string semiquavers and formidable doublestops, but showing them off as charming and attractive music.

The influence of Piatti’s close friend Verdi is evident in passages of eloquent recitative-like double-stops and operatic-style heroic melodies.

Time and again Brantelid skilfully draws out the melody from the myriad of accompanying notes, turning something that looks pretty daunting on the page into a playful trifle. The recorded sound, clear and immediate, brings out the warm resonance of his 1707 ‘Boni-Hegar’ Stradivari.

Brantelid’s father joins him for a joyful and stylish rendition of Popper’s Suite, the two instruments moving as one. Fitzenhagen’s Concert Waltzes sound a like an extreme string quartet, so high does the upper part play, and there is some wonderful rubato from the four cellists.

Klengel’s Hymnus, featuring the 48 strings of the disc’s title, is rightly the most renowned work here, its sheer richness of sound culminating in a celestial-sounding closing chord.

JANET BANKS

L’AURORE Works by Hildegard, Enescu, Benjamin, Ysaÿe and Bach Carolin Widmann (violin)

ECM 4856803

Eloquence proves the linking theme through this adventurous recital

It’s hard to discern any unifying theme or thread running through the wide-ranging repertoire on Carolin Widmann’s disc of solo works, her seventh ECM release – indeed, she calls it ‘my little encyclopaedia’ in her booklet interview. Nonetheless, absorbed from start to finish, it offers a deeply rewarding experience, and one that’s illuminated throughout by Widmann’s own quietly revelatory insights and eloquent playing.

Two subtly different instrumental traversals of Hildegard of Bingen’s ‘Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita’ bookend the disc’s opening pieces, played with a clearly vocal sense of freedom and spontaneity. The exuberant, even aggressive doublestopping and full-throated G-string melodies of Enescu’s seldom heard Fantaisie concertante come as quite a shock after the austere purity of Hildegard’s unadorned monody, but Widmann attacks the later work with passion and an appropriate sense of fantasy – insights she also spins over into George Benjamin’s Three Miniatures, given strangely magical, unsettling accounts of a depth that belies their brevity.

But it’s the yin-yang balance between Widmann’s Ysaÿe Fifth Sonata and her Bach Second Partita that really carries the weight of the disc. Her Ysaÿe is a study in controlled expression, a sunrise that builds and blossoms steadily in joy and colour, heralding a rustic dance that feels more sophisticated than bucolic, all of it etched with sharpedged clarity and shifting hues. Her Bach Partita is all about the dance, too, but here the initial four movements lead inexorably to an unashamedly serious but beautifully lithe closing Chaconne, whose liquid elegance – most of all in its central major section – never masks the profound emotional journey it charts, nor its unflinching, quietly devastating conclusion.

An eclectic disc it might be, but it’s also a powerfully moving collection of works, brilliantly capturing Carolin Widmann’s persuasive insights.

DAVID KETTLE

1919 VIOLA SONATAS RYELANDT Viola Sonata op.73

SOULAGE Viola Sonata op.25 FOOTE Viola Sonata op.78a BANTOCK Viola Sonata in F major – Vivace Hillary Herndon (viola)

Wei-Chun Bernadette Lo (piano)

MSR MS1701

A seminal moment in viola history is recreated with flair

The year 1919 was a milestone in the history of the viola, with the Berkshire Festival Competition alone prompting the creation of 72 compositions. That contest famously ended with a tie between Ernest Bloch’s Suite and Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata (broken by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, its patron, in favour of the former), but no records of the other participants have been preserved.

This CD includes three pieces that – according to research undertaken by the American Viola Society’s David Bynog – were most likely entered for that momentous event.

For all their stylistic differences, the compositions are traditionally cast in clear-cut sonata forms. The sweeping main theme of Joseph Ryelandt’s piece is effectively contrasted with a yearning second subject; there follow a melancholic slow movement redolent of Fauré and a lively finale. The undulating motifs of Marcelle Soulage’s impressionistically tinged sonata emphasise the viola’s high register.

Arthur Foote arranged a previously composed cello piece for the viola; its Brahmsian first movement is slightly stiff in manner, but the mood lightens for a song-like slow movement and a nicely lilting finale.

A delightful encore to this fascinating recital comes in the form of the jig-like finale of Granville Bantock’s Sonata. This is given in a somewhat shortened form, but there are at least two complete recordings of this monumental work available.

Hillary Herndon and Wei-Chun Bernadette Lo have often performed these pieces in an intriguing ‘recreation’ of the 1919 competition (I heard it at the 2019 International Viola Congress), and this familiarity shows in their perfectly paced, passionate performances, which get to the core of each composer’s individual idiom. Warmly recorded at the University of Tennessee, the CD is further enhanced by Bynog’s indispensable booklet notes.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

OSSY RENARDY: THE COMPLETE REMINGTON RECORDINGS FRANCK Violin Sonata in A major PAGANINI 24 Caprices op.1 (arr. David)

RAVEL Violin Sonata in G major Ossy Renardy (violin)

Eugene Helmer, Eugene List (pianos)

BIDDULPH 85016-2 (2 CDS)

Final thoughts from a muchlamented violinist

These were the last recordings made by the legendary Viennese fiddler Ossy Renardy (1920–53) before his untimely death in a car crash.

Taped for the Remington label, they feature his 1743 ‘Paganini-Carrodus’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ and have been well refurbished from the original LPs.

It was the second time Renardy had documented the 24 Caprices but by 1953 such colleagues as Ricci and Kogan had started playing them minus piano and Ricci had recorded them (in 1950, not 1947 as sometimes stated).

I find Ferdinand David’s accompaniments, competently played by Eugene Helmer, a constant irritant; and Paganini playing has moved on – among recent recordings Ning Feng stands out for dispatching the Caprices with perfect technique, while also bringing out their narrative quality. Renardy is at his best when making operatic gestures (such as in nos.7, 8, 11 and 21).

In technique and intonation he is mostly splendid: nos.14 and 16 are a little strained (he opts for the shortest version of 14); while the tricky no.12, which Rachel Barton Pine dubbed the ‘ugly duckling’ – she now loves it – is both dodgily tuned and rather nondescript. Otherwise all is well: arpeggios, octave trills, staccato volante, ricochet, 3rds, 6ths, octaves, 10ths, G-string solos (nos.18 and 19) are grist to Renardy’s mill; and his violin rings out, despite the ‘historic’ sound quality.

The sonatas with the virtuoso Eugene List are marvellous – Idid wonder if the violin is fractionally favoured within the balance. In the Franck the two distil a fine blend of declamation, intensity and Innigkeit, culminating in a terrific ending, while the Ravel is the essence of insouciance and cool, with excellent bowing in the finale. Both performances have many beauties.

TULLY POTTER

LA FOLIA Works by Kreisler, Vitali, Paradis, Corelli, Respighi and Tartini Sebastian Bohren (violin) CHAARTS Chamber Artists, Stringendo Zürich/Jens Lohmann

AVIE AV2513

An ancient melody sparks a lively response

This violin and string orchestra programme from Sebastian Bohren, formerly of the Stradivari Quartet, has multiple influences: the enduringly popular La folia theme; the violinists who favoured Romantic transcriptions of Baroque repertoire; and love of playing a great instrument, which for Bohren right now is a 1761 Guadagnini. It’s been a real labour of love, too, because, having recorded the whole with CHAARTS Chamber Artists, he felt moved to re-record Kreisler’s Praeludium and Allegro, Vitali’s G minor Chaconne and Paradis’s Sicilienne, with Stringendo Zürich.

The results are palpably imbued with love, with attentive, lucidtextured support from both ensembles. I sense the violin’s sustained tonal intensity isn’t just down to the Guadagnini’s notable brightness, but also to the consistency of Bohren’s own sound.

Strikingly, for Respighi’s Pastorale he reverts to the softer-toned 1710

‘King George’ Strad he played with the Stradivari Quartet, yet he retains a similar degree of intensity.

Ultimately this is perhaps an album more for cherry-picking than for listening right through.

CHARLOTTE GARDNER

Whole Notes: Life Lessons through Music Ed Ayres

320PP ISBN 9780733341038

ABC BOOKS £16.99

This book presents an insight into the author’s experiences of teaching and learning music, alongside his personal gender identity story and subsequent female to male transition in later life.

The author gives a full account of his musical life, from receiving recorder and violin lessons at primary school, to establishing himself as an orchestral viola player, then later, after a change of instrument, enjoying a second career as a cello (and viola) teacher, as well as a writer and music broadcaster.

The text is full of anecdotes and interesting observations; tales from the string teaching room abound, and include heart-warming and perceptive accounts of highlights from lessons with children and adults of all ages and stages. There are many descriptions of teaching techniques and successful moments in lessons that will resonate with all instrumental teachers, as well as accounts of numerous occasions on which Ayres, as the teacher, found himself learning just as much, if not more than his students. He also charts the joys, frustrations and triumphs of learning the French horn as an adult with good-natured humour, as well as offering information and opinions on a very wide range of mostly musical topics.

In addition, we read about the practicalities of his gender transition journey – dealing with hormone injections, simultaneous male puberty and menopause, and surgery – as well as tracking his path around the globe from Kent to Brisbane, Australia via Manchester, London, Hong Kong, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Grouped under seven headings: Bravery, Knowledge, Resilience, Kindness, Wisdom, Hope and Love, the author weaves the various strands of his life experiences together with such apparent effortlessness that the result is a highly enjoyable page-turning read.

But this book is not just an interesting memoir. As well as dwelling on the specific rewards of teaching and learning a musical instrument, and documenting the author’s gender transitioning, central to this book is a celebration of music as ‘humanity’s greatest creation’. Music is referenced on every page – it underpins every chapter, story or comment in a way that is both inspiring, uplifting and thought-provoking. There are no cringeworthy bar-by-bar descriptions of music, just a constant reminder of the power that music has to console, to inspire and to change. Not everything in the book is joyful and wonderful; the author hints at a less than idyllic early family life, and there are references to a period of depression triggered by gender dysphoria, as well as discrimination and other hurdles faced as a transgender man. But the nature of the writing, which bounces mercurially between topics, means that the author’s wry and often selfdeprecating sense of humour is never far away, and there is no hint of misery-memoir in these pages.

Put simply, this is a gorgeous read. It is entertaining and educating in equal measure, and will leave its readers inspired, whether that be to practise, to listen to a long list of specific music (a playlist is included) or to make more substantial changes in their lives. It is a book about how we – teachers, learners, listeners – can use music to train ourselves to listen, and how by listening, we can find meaning and truth in life. It should appeal to everyone, musicians and non-musicians alike. I very much encourage you to read it.

CELIA COBB

Uncommon Measure: A Journey Through Music, Performance, and the Science of Time Natalie Hodges

224PP ISBN 9781942658979

BELLEVUE LITERARY PRESS £12.99

This is one those rare books that inspires one to go back time and again to re-read a sentence simply because of the elegance and penetrating insight with which it is written. We are only a couple of paragraphs in when Natalie Hodges reflects: ‘Our subconscious minds are constantly at work rewriting time in the margins of our memories, coaxing narrative out of chronology, temporal order out of time’s chaos.’

This is hardly the sort of thing one expects to find in a young violinist’s reflections on her recent musical past, yet since she withdrew from concert life due to the onset of performance anxiety, Hodges has tried to make sense of her experiences through the twin portals of neuroscience and quantum physics. Rather than merely dwelling on the purely emotional aspect of dealing with crushingly high personal expectations, she steps outside the box and looks at how music informs our experience of time, and whether we as musicians are living in time, or whether time lives in us.

Hodges then homes in perceptively on exactly how her (and by extension our) anxiety manifests. It would start typically by fixating obsessively on a particular passage that never seemed to go exactly as she wanted, so much so that the actual performance would become temporally distorted. In addition to the temporal dichotomy performers are familiar with – the coexistence of ‘real’ time ‘out there’ and the music’s internal temporal flow – she would experience a sense of accelerating uncontrollably towards the ‘doomed place’, and then at the point of arrival would feel as if time had stopped, ‘as though the waves of sound, flowing along in their currents, had suddenly crashed against a mighty dam that they couldn’t overcome’.

Along the way, Hodges throws fresh light on even the most common of musical terms, such as rondo form, which she eloquently describes as having ‘the mesmerising effect of moving you linearly and circularly though time, at the same time.’ Almost as passing asides, she poetically encapsulates the function of music as ‘bending time’s suppleness into sonic shape’, and of musical memory as ‘lending form and shape to experience in biographical time’.

And I guarantee that Bach’s D minor Chaconne will never feel quite the same after reading Hodges’ penetrating overview of its temporal psychology. Unputdownable.

JULIAN HAYLOCK

Orchestra Management Handbook: Building Relationships in Turbulent Times Travis Newton

248PP ISBN 9780197550687

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS £22.99

These past two years have taken their toll on the people who run our orchestras. It’s not been an easy job at the best of times, but the pandemic and Brexit have made life a lot tougher for the chief executives of the UK’s orchestras. So it’s welcome news that what in effect is a manual for the people in leadership roles, or who aspire to be leaders in the future, has arrived from across the pond. While, as the author admits, the book is focused on orchestras in the US, its detailed analysis of the wide-ranging responsibilities that go with running an orchestra are relevant to hardpressed CEOs in the UK too.

Not surprisingly, its section on fundraising is particularly American in focus, and British fundraisers will raise a wry smile at the statement that American orchestras garner more revenue from donations than from ticket sales (the average ratio in the UK is 50 per cent earned and 20 per cent fundraised). And it says little about public funding, which is so crucial a source of income for many orchestras in the UK, as well as loading additional responsibility on the CEO. But the chapter on marketing will be especially helpful to those orchestra managers concerned to ensure they drive up sales and customer loyalty, especially as we emerge from the pandemic. In contrast to the US, where the book admits to a downward trend in audiences, we were seeing a growth in audience numbers in the UK before Covid-19 hit.

It’s the final chapter on relevance that really hits home. While offering no easy answers, it will help those struggling with implementing their inclusion strategy to at least set a pathway to a more diverse future.

As Travis Newton says, ‘Simply put, orchestra management is hard work.’ He’s not wrong there. But his much-needed book will at least help those struggling on the front line to check they are doing things right, and making their adaptations for the better.

MARK PEMBERTON