Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Bartok: Violin Sonata No.2 [HMN911702] Isabelle Faust, Florent Boffard
Classical | Exact Audio Copy (ape+cue+no log)+scans | 1CD/183MB | RS.com

As with her previous Bartók volume in Harmonia Mundi's Les Nouvelles Interprètes series, violinist Isabelle Faust's polished, energetic playing leaves no detail unturned. She turns in a fervent, big-boned performance of the Second Sonata, brilliantly partnered by Florent Boffard's nimble, responsive piano work. Although I admire the pair's healthy athleticism in the Rhapsodies and the Danses Populaires Roumaines (arranged for violin by Zoltán Székely, for whom Bartók composed the Second Rhapsody) they gloss over the music's earthy, speech-like syntax. Indeed, Székely himself imparts more timbral variety, idiomatic perception, and rhythmic flexibility to both Rhapsodies. A co-production with Radio France, the recording quality is bright and clear, but lacks warmth at the bottom end of the spectrum. Forty-six minutes of music is a little skimpy for a single CD these days, yet no one will feel shortchanged by Isabelle Faust's potent gifts. I look forward to hearing more of her.

Jed Distler, Classics Today.com

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Although Elgar wrote relatively little organ music, the instrument played a key role in his formative years and toward the end of his life. The G Major Sonata from 1895 represents Elgar's first large-scale effort with symphonic form, while Ivor Atkins's arrangement of the Severn Suite for brass (sanctioned by Elgar in 1933, the year before his death) amounts to a veritable Second Sonata. All the clarity, rhythmic firmness, and registration smarts John Butt brought to his superb Harmonia Mundi Bach recital are present in his Elgar traversals. Notice, for instance, the gentle urgency with which he propels the bass lines in the First Sonata's brisk outer movements, the Second Sonata's crisply delineated Toccata, and the lyrical dignity he brings to the Vesper Voluntaries. True, Carlo Curley's more extroverted and color-coded reading of the First Sonata on Argo outflashes Butt's relatively straightlaced demeanor. This release, however, will attract Elgarians and organ buffs alike seeking intelligent musicianship and virtuosity that draws attention to the music first. The organist also provides his own apt, informative notes.

Jed Distler, Amazon.com

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Sound begets light.
Often considered to be the musical testament of André Jolivet, the Violin Concerto (1972) is headed by an aphorism from the cosmogony of the Hopi Indians: ‘The essence of man is sound: sound begets life and the spirit shows itself therein.’ According to Devy Erlih, the piece is not so much a concerto in the traditional sense as a ‘hypnotic ceremony at which the violin might be seen as the principal officiant’. Isabelle Faust offers as her coupling Chausson’s celebrated Poème. In both these works, written for the violinists Leonid Kogan and Eugène Ysaÿe respectively, the listener cannot fail to be struck by their incantatory dimension.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

‘The most natural music of all occurs when four people go out together in the woods or in a boat, and carry the music with them and inside them!’ (Mendelssohn, 1839). These pieces for chorus, sparkling musical miniatures, are perhaps the finest illustration of this profession of artistic faith.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Marx and Lenin probably would not have appreciated the irony, but after decades of Communist repression of religion, the former Soviet bloc is the source of a profound outpouring of explicitly Christian expression. This is manifested in the music of such composers as Henryk Gorecki, a Pole, and Arvo Pärt, an Estonian. Part, a refugee from serialism, here writes in a quasi-minimalist style that he calls "tintinnabuli," a sound that echoes medieval composition. A fan of vocal music ("The human voice is the most perfect instrument of all"), he uses choruses to superb effect. This disc includes some of his best work, including the popular Magnificat, beautifully rendered by the Theatre of Voices under Paul Hillier.

Sarah Bryan Miller, Amazon.com

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

These sonatas written by a Schubert at the age of 19 and 20, just as he was about to enjoy his first successes in Vienna, are truly touched by grace. Openly inspired by the heritage of the great Classical masters – Mozart, Haydn, and of course Beethoven – and deceptively simple, they benefit here from the talent and the reinvigorating approach of two virtuosos whom one might not expect to encounter in this repertoire. Following their recordings of Bach, Biber and Handel, the Manze/Egarr duo employ their not inconsiderable talents to show us a fresh and different Schubert.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

I have so much enjoyed working with The Academy of Ancient Music and we have together produced what seems to me a very interesting disc. In one sense, all of this music confronts Death, Love, and Eternity: death of a beloved father in Funeral Canticle; Sappho's exquiste longings for her love in Sappho: Lyrical Fragments; and Seferis showing his long Odyssean voyage on rotten timbers to those islands ever so slightly out of reach in Petra. And, then, the mystery of Eternity: Blake's Eternity's Sunrise and the Song of the Angel. In the words of St. Isaac the Syrian: "When we reach love, we have reached God; our road is ended and we have crossed to the Island which is beyond the world."

John Tavener

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Composed during a time of deep personal turmoil (a disastrous and short-lived marriage, and discovery of his "muse," Mme von Meck), Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony is full of subtle dynamic gradation and rhythmic plasticity. An exciting performance of the Capriccio Italien completes the programme.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

In his first recording for harmonia mundi, Maestro Gatti leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a visionary, romantic reading of two Tchaikovsky favorites: the Fifth Symphony and the Fantasy Overture Romeo and Juliet. Demonstrating his flair for drama and passionate respect for the composer’s intentions, Gatti restores the rarely observed tempo markings and dynamic indications which Tchaikovsky detailed in his score.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

One of the greatest and most beloved of all symphonies, the Pathétique – premiered only nine days before Tchaikovsky's own demise in October 1893 – boldly depicts the polarity between life and death. Maestro Gatti and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra offer a riveting reading.

×

Project Harmonia Mundi - Part 35

Close

Paul O'Dette has done more to introduce the lute and its extensive repertoire to modern ears than just about anyone. On Robin Hood, he plays a collection of Elizabethan ballads that were arranged for solo lute in the 16th century. Although the names of the composers of most of these pieces have been lost to us, the music is of a uniformly high quality and stands up very well next to the selections by known composers like William Byrd and Peter Phillips. O'Dette plays the selections on three instruments: the lute, the orpharion (a flat-back, metal-strung cousin to the lute), and the cittern, (a metal-strung instrument that is plucked with a quill rather than the fingers). The metal strings of the orpharion and cittern have a longer sustain than the gut strings of the lute, which gives the pieces played on them a sound similar to that of the modern steel-string guitar. O'Dette is renowned for his scholarship, which he demonstrates in the meticulously annotated liner notes, and for his formidable technique. But as powerful as his head and his hands are, O'Dette never forgets that it's the heart that makes these delightful works music rather than just a series of well-played notes.

Michael Simmons, Amazon.com