All Reviews articles – Page 163
-
ArticleRhythm & Texture. Ravel: String Quartet in F major. Gershwin: Lullaby. Lavista: Reflejos de la noche. Alvarez: Metro Chabacano. Golijov: Tenebrae
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Brodsky QuartetComposer: Ravel, Gershwin, Lavista, Alvarez, Golijov True to the album’s title, the Brodskys explore the expressive parameters and sonic potentialities of Ravel’s glorious String Quartet to an unrivalled degree. Their micro-inflected playing reveals layers of expression closed to traditional readings in ...
-
ArticleKillmayer: Fünf Romanzen, Acht Bagatellen. Schumann: Drei Romanzen, Fünf Stücke im Volkston
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Nicolas Altstaedt (cello) José Gallardo (piano)Composer: Killmayer, Schumann The contemporary German composer Wilhelm Killmayer (b.1927) has much more in common with Schumann than mere nationality. His Five Romances and Eight Bagatelles are strongly characterised cameo character pieces that share his ...
-
ArticleBrahms: Piano Quartet in G minor op. 25. Schumann: Piano Quartet in E flat major op. 47
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Eaken Trio, Joseph Esmilla (viola)Composer: Brahms, Schumann The Eaken Trio of Pennsylvania played these quartets 17 times in the 2007–8 concert season with Joseph Esmilla, before he returned to his native Philippines. Engineer Timothy Breon captured them at the Mount ...
-
ArticleGypsic. Monti: Czárdás. Enescu: Violin Sonata no.3 op.25. Ravel: Tzigane, Berceuse, Blues from Violin Sonata. Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen op.20. G. Boulanger. Avant de mourir
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Sarah Nemtanu (violin) Chilly Gonzalez (piano/Farfisa organ/percussion) Romain Descharmes (piano) Iurie Morar (cimbalom) Orchestra/Aurélien Azan ZielinskiComposer: Monti, Enescu, Ravel, Sarasate, G. BoulangerThis label encourages its violinists to tinker with well-known pieces, whether from a spirit of fun, or a desperate desire to ...
-
ArticleBritten: String Quartet no.2 in C major op.36, Three Divertimenti, Miniature Suite, String Quartet in D major
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Emperor QuartetComposer: Britten The Emperor Quartet gives a well-paced and deeply thought account of the second of Britten’s numbered quartets. Maybe the first movement lacks the last degree of tension in its more dramatic moments, but the ‘Allegro calmo’ indication ...
-
ArticleLydia Mordkovich pays tribute to David Oistrakh. Locatelli: Sonata op.6 no.7 ‘Au tombeau’, Caprice no.23 ‘Il labirinto armonico’. Ysaÿe: Sonata op.27 no.2. Chausson: Poème op.25. Shostakovich: Sonata
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Lydia Mordkovitch (violin) Nicholas Walker, Marina Gusak-Grin, Clifford Benson, James Kirby (piano)Composer: Locatelli, Ysaÿe, Chausson, Shostakovich, Rachmaninoff‘Lydia Mordkovitch pays tribute to David Oistrakh’ has given Chandos the opportunity to recycle recordings made by the violinist since arriving in Britain in 1980. A ...
-
ArticleDebussy: Suite for cello and orchestra (arr. Beamish). Ravel: Deux mélodies hébraïques (arr. Tognetti). Prokofiev: Concertino for cello and orchestra op.132 (arr. Blok). Bloch: From Jewish Life (arr.
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Steven Isserlis (cello) Tapiola Sinfonietta/Gábor Takács-NagyComposer: Debussy, Ravel, Prokofiev, BlochThe ancestry of the four orchestrations is detailed in the disc’s booklet notes, though the work masquerading under the name of Debussy is highly questionable. At the age of 19 he composed a ...
-
ArticleBeethoven: String Quartets opp.127, 130–3 & 135
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Tokyo Quartet Composer: BeethovenA quotation from the Boston Globe on the back of this new set of the Tokyo Quartet’s Beethoven recordings comments that they are ‘both grounded and weightless, carved in granite and floating on air’. Certainly, we are spared ...
-
ArticleDominant Curve. Jacobsen: Achille’s Heel. Umezaki: (Cycles) what falls must rise. Debussy: String Quartet in G minor op.10. Yanov-Yanovsky: ...al niente. Cage: In a Landscape (arr. Messina)
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Brooklyn Rider, Kojiro Umezaki (shakuhachi/electronics) Justin Messina (electronics)Composer: Jacobsen, Umezaki, Debussy, Yanov-Yanovsky, CageFrom the stylish CD design to the philosophical booklet notes, I was prepared to dismiss this new disc from young New York quartet Brooklyn Rider as style over substance. But ...
-
ArticleSchumann: String Quartet in A minor op.41 no. 1, Piano Quintet in E flat major op. 44
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Pražák Quartet, Evgeni Koroliov (piano)Composer: Schumann This Schumann bicentenary tribute features two works that were publicly premiered on 8 January 1843 at Leipzig’s Gewandhaus by Ferdinand David’s Quartet, with Clara Schumann. The members of the Pražák Quartet give a perceptive, ...
-
ArticleFoerster: String Quartets nos.1–5, String Quintet op.3, The Prayer, Erinnerung, Allegro giocoso
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Stamic Quartet, Ji?í Hudec (double bass) Jana Boušková (harp)Composer: Foerster Josef Bohuslav Foerster (1859–1951) was born when musical Romanticism was being revitalised by the gradual emergence of a series of national schools, most crucially in Bohemia. By the end ...
-
ArticleHaydn: String Quartets op.20 nos.1–6
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Daedalus QuartetComposer: HaydnHaydn’s op.20 quartets come from a period when he was developing a more dramatic approach to the medium, and the American-based Daedalus Quartet reflect this in faithfully observing his dynamic markings, but without the exaggerations that are becoming too prevalent. ...
-
ArticleKorngold: String Quartets nos.1–3
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Doric QuartetComposer: Korngold Those readers unfamiliar with these particular works may well be in for a surprise. Far from offering the expected distillation of (Richard) Straussian luxuriance and tone-poem exuberance, Korngold demonstrates a sensitivity for the genre that is far closer to, ...
-
ArticlePaganini's 24 Caprices op.1
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Julia Fischer (violin)Composer: PaganiniFollowing second recordings of Paganini’s caprices by Thomas Zehetmair (reviewed December 2009) and James Ehnes (reviewed January 2010), Julia Fischer continues her exploration of these violinists’ benchmark works with her first issue of this challenging opus. Apart from a ...
-
ArticleBach: Suites for solo cello no.1 in G major BWV1007, no.4 in E flat major BWV1010 & no.5 in C minor BWV1011 (transcr. viola)
THE STRAD RECOMMENDSThe Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Maxim Rysanov (viola)Composer: Bach Although the booklet lists the three suites included in this recording in ascending numerical order, the CD starts with the full-bodied E flat major arpeggiations of Suite no.4. Seldom can they have been more sonorous than ...
-
ArticleHaydn: Cello Concertos in C major Hob.VIIb:1 & D major Hob.VIIb.2, Minuets nos.1, 6 & 11 Hob.IX:16
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Ivan Monighetti (cello/conductor) Polish Sinfonia Iuventus OrchestraComposer: Haydn As a former winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition, and Rostropovich’s last pupil, Ivan Monighetti has an unassailable cellistic provenance, and yet despite the diversity of his interests, which incorporate both period ...
-
ArticleWhite Nights
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Chris Stout (fiddle) Catriona McKay (Scottish harp)Composer: Various These longtime Fiddlers’ Bid bandmates improve upon their previous duo outing, 2005’s excellent Laebrack, with an album that’s both more adventurous and more refined. The mesmeric opening lament sets a formidable standard ...
-
ArticleMiller: Walk
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Kristen Miller (cello, vocals)Composer: MillerKristen Miller is a folk–rock cellist/singer–songwriter who, with the help of a digital recorder, creates layered songs in real time. Walk is, in spirit, more folk than rock – acoustic and communicating an at times sepia-tinged introspection. But, ...
-
ArticleTristan und Isolde. Wagner: Transcriptions and paraphrases
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Hisaya Sato (violin) Toshiyuki Takeuchi (piano)Composer: Wagner Thirty-eight-year-old Japanese violinist Hisaya Sato is to be commended on his ambition to revive long-forgotten repertoire and the launch of his own record label to promote it – all but three of ...
-
ArticleThe Music of Eddie South
The Strad Issue: January 2010Musicians: Violinjazz, Harold Jones (percussion), Andrea Liguori (piano)Composer: Eddie South This tribute to American jazz violinist Eddie South (1904–62), by West Coast musician Jeremy Cohen, is no cloning job but a successful disc in its own right. From the opening fanfare to Black ...
