All Reviews articles – Page 131
-
ReviewRecital
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: The iconoclastic violinist explores his musical rootsMusicians: Nigel Kennedy (violin) and ensembleComposer: VariousFor this album, Nigel Kennedy has chosen to revisit the music he grew up with – swing, Bach, reggae and more – and so perhaps it’s appropriate that he’s gone ...
-
ReviewShostakovich: String Quartets nos.9–12. Weinberg: String Quartet no.6
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Performances that evoke both 19th-century tradition and 20th-century realitiesMusicians: Pacifica QuartetComposer: Shostakovich, WeinbergThe third and penultimate volume in the Pacifica Quartet’s distinguished Shostakovich cycle (revealingly subtitled ‘The Soviet Experience’) boasts the same sense of emotional imperativeness that distinguished the previous instalments. Some ...
-
ReviewA. Romberg: Violin Concerto no.3 in D minor op.461, Violin Sonata no.3 in G minor op.322, Don Mendoza Overture op.363 B. Romberg: Cello Concerto no.2 in D major op.34, Divertimento on Austrian Folkson
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Well-played accounts of two concertos, despite a missing cadenzaMusicians: Yury Revich (violin) Lionel Cottet (cello) Federico Diaz (guitar) Hof Symphony Orchestra/Luca BizzozeroComposer: A. Romberg, B. RombergThis disc features the work of the Romberg cousins – violinist Andreas (1767–1821) and cellist Bernhard (1767–1841). ...
-
ReviewOnslow: Cello Sonatas op.16: no.1 in F major, no.2 in C minor & no.3 in A major
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Tasteful accounts of rarely heard sonatas written in the shadow of BeethovenMusicians: Maria Kliegel (cello) Nina Tichman (piano)Composer: OnslowFive years after Beethoven wrote his last cello sonata, George Onslow, a descendent of the British nobility writing in Paris, penned his own three ...
-
ReviewNölck: Salon music for cello & piano. Mendelssohn Songs without Words nos.1, 6,12,18, 23 & 30 (arr. Nölck)
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Even accomplished performances can’t rescue mundane cello miniaturesMusicians: Beth Vanderborgh (cello) Theresa Bogard (piano)Composer: NölckTravelling from Hamburg to Vienna and eventually settling in Dresden, Lübeck-born cellist–composer August Nölck (1862–1928) absorbed the Romantic language of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms, rendering his music, largely ...
-
ReviewMendelssohn: String Quintets no.1 in A major op.18 & no.2 in B flat major op.87
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Vibrant readings of works from both ends of Mendelssohn’s short lifeMusicians: Leipzig Quartet, Barbara Buntrock (viola)Composer: MendelssohnSuch was Mendelssohn’s creative genius that when comparing works in the same genre it is not always immediately apparent whether one is listening to a work ...
-
ReviewE. Dall'Abaco: Sonata movements J. Dall'Abaco: Capricci
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Successful accounts of music from an 18th-century Italian dynastyMusicians: Bruno Cocset (cello/viola/tenor violin) Les Basses RéuniesComposer: E. Dall'Abaco, J. Dall'AbacoJoseph Dall’Abaco’s capriccios are here interspersed among selected movements from the sonatas opp.1 and 3 by his father, Evaristo, transposed for a variety ...
-
ReviewBeethoven: String Trios in E flat major op.3, G major op.9 no 1, D major op.9 no.2 & C minor op.9 no.3, Serenade in D major op.8
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Performances of Beethoven’s complete trios that succeed best in their good humourMusicians: Lendvai String TrioComposer: BeethovenThe Dutch, Swedish and British members of the Lendvai String Trio came together in 2004 while students at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and since ...
-
ReviewBeethoven: String Quartets op.18 nos.3–5
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: The engaging launch of a new Beethoven series from a veteran ensembleMusicians: Allegri QuartetComposer: BeethovenBeethoven’s op.18 string quartets may not match the formal experimentation and expressive extremes of his later quartets, but there’s a youthful invention that shows the young arrival to ...
-
ReviewDelius: Concerto for violin and cello, Violin Concerto, Cello Concerto
The Strad Issue: January 2011Description: Masterly accounts of Delius’s concertos for strings, together for the first time on discMusicians: Tasmin Little (violin) Paul Watkins (cello) BBC Symphony Orchestra/Andrew DavisComposer: DeliusTaken en masse, Delius’s three string concertos can seem like a knotted skein of rhapsody, especially given their ...
-
ReviewBach: Violin Concertos in A minor BWV1041 & E major BWV1042, Harpsichord Concerto in E major BWV1053 (arr. Dantone for violin in D major), Concerto for two harpsichords in C minor BWV1060 (arr. Danton
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: New transcriptions hog the limelight in a disc of Bach violin concertosMusicians: Viktoria Mullova (violin) Accademia Bizantina/Ottavio Dantone (director/harpsichord)Composer: Bach, Bach (arr. Dantone)The real interest here lies in the two transcriptions that accompany the E major and A minor violin concertos. Arranged ...
-
ReviewViolin Lullabies
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: A delightful disc of miniatures succeeds in its aim to sootheMusicians: Rachel Barton Pine (violin) Matthew Hagle (piano)Composer: Brahms, Ysaÿe, Rebikov, Beach, Schwab, Respighi, Gershwin, Falla, Fauré, Sibelius, Viardot-García, Hovhaness, Stravinsky, Ravel, Clarke, Schubert, Schumann, Durosoir, Grieg, Antsev, Strauss, Sivori, Béraud, Still ...
-
ReviewBach: Suites for solo cello nos.1–3 (arr. double bass)
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Proof that bassists can be just as nimble and expressive as cellistsMusicians: Jory Herman (double bass)Composer: BachWhether as a result of the unassailable musical status of these suites, or because of an understandable desire to outsmart their cello-playing colleagues, it’s ...
-
ReviewSchubert: String Quartet in G major D887, Quartettsatz in C minor D703
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: A tribute to the art of ensemble playingMusicians: Wihan QuartetComposer: SchubertEverything about this recording suggests long acquaintance and a great deal of thought. The great G major Quartet has a dramatic, operatic intensity to it, a sense of powerful narrative ...
-
ReviewLalo: Cello Concerto in D minor. Berlioz: Love Scene from Roméo et Juliette. Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto no.2 in D minor op.119
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: A highly successful rehabilitation of two lesser-known French cello concertosMusicians: Pieter Wispelwey (cello) Flanders Symphony Orchestra/Seikyo KimComposer: Lalo, Berlioz, Saint-SaënsPieter Wispelwey appears on this disc as a cellist in total control of his instrument. He draws a clear, pure, but ...
-
ReviewSchubert: Violin Sonatas in D major D384, A minor D385, G minor D408 & A major D574, Rondo in B minor D895, Fantasy in C major D934, Sei mir gegrüsst! D741
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Outgoing performances of Schubert’s complete violin musicMusicians: Alina Ibragimova (violin) Cédric Tiberghien (piano)Composer: SchubertComposed in one hectic year when Schubert was 19, the first three violin sonatas were in a style inherited from Mozart, and were described as ‘sonatinas’ when first published ...
-
ReviewScelsi: The Violin Works: Divertimentos nos.2–4, L’me ailée – L’me ouverte, Xnoybis
The Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Weird and wonderful sounds for solo violin from an Italian maverickMusicians: Weiping Lin (violin)Composer: ScelsiRecord label Mode has been careful not to call this fine release the ‘complete’ solo violin works by idiosyncratic 20th-century Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi (1905–88): the Divertimento no.1, ...
-
ReviewTchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major op.35, Souvenir de Florence op.70
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: A notably lyrical account of a Russian warhorseMusicians: Sarah Nemtanu, Luc Héry (violin) Sabine Toutain, Christophe Gaugué (viola) Raphaël Perraud, Jean-Luc Bourré (cello) Orchestre National de France/Kurt MasurComposer: TchaikovskyIt is astonishing just how far the interpretative pendulum has swung in ...
-
ReviewBrahms: String Quartet in A minor op.51 no.2, Clarinet Quintet in B minor op.115
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Beautifully polished performances of two Brahms masterpiecesMusicians: Jerusalem Quartet, Sharon Kam (clarinet)Composer: BrahmsThankfully we have passed beyond the era when clarinettists thought of the Brahms Quintet as a quasi-concerto, though few have gone quite so far in the opposite direction ...
-
ReviewGrieg: Violin Concertos nos.1–3 (violin sonatas, orch. Kraggerud & Lund)
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2013Description: Intriguing new concerto versions of Grieg’s violin sonatasMusicians: Henning Kraggerud (violin) Tromsø Chamber OrchestraComposer: Grieg (orch. Kraggerud & Lund)By his own account, Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud has been ‘troubled… since I was a boy’ by the dearth of Norwegian works ...
