Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica GEORGE ENESCU Octet, Op. 7 - Quintet, Op. 29

Featuring the first recording of two works by George Enescu -- the String Octet, Op. 7, and the Piano Quintet, Op. 29 -- this album introduces the listener to the fascinating, multifaceted, and intriguing world of the Romanian master's chamber music. Enescu's music is expertly performed by members of the extraordinary KREMERata BALTICA under the direction of Gidon Kremer, who plays first violin in both pieces. Kremer wisely chose the music, for the two works in many ways exemplify the salient features of the Enescu's musical language and reflect his development from an eclectic, post-Romantic style to a richer, more complex and personal idiom. Composed in 1900, the lush, colorful, and dynamic octet is played with remarkable subtlety, balance, and sense of nuance. The string players find the exact tonal color to perfectly conjure up Enescu's polychromous musical imagery, also impeccably expressing a wide range of moods from lyrically intimate to ardently symphonic. In the piano quintet, which Enescu composed in 1940, the players rise to the challenge of interpreting a work presenting many technical and artistic problems, many stemming from the composer's austerely sophisticated idiom. Indeed, the KREMERata, completely mastering the many complexities of Enescu's style, rewards listeners with the shared experience of highly significant, albeit lesser-known, works of twentieth century chamber music. (Zoran Minderovic)

Gidon Kremer / Kremerata Baltica VICTOR KISSINE Between Two Waves

Issued in time for the 60th birthday of the composer from St Petersburg, “Between Two Waves” is the first ECM disc devoted entirely to Victor Kissine’s music. It follows on, chronologically and conceptually, from two earlier New Series recordings (ECM 1883 and ECM 2202), both of which featured Gidon Kremer and his associates.
It was while working with Kremer and friends on the realization of his luminous orchestration of Schubert’s Quartet in G Major in 2003 that Kissine began to consider the creative possibilities of a new piece that would be “orchestral but intimate - a kind of ‘concerto in watercolour’.” This was the conceptual idea that set in motion the composition “Barcarola”, for violin solo, string orchestra and percussion.
All three pieces on the present disc of premiere recordings are dedicated to their respective interpreters, and all draw inspiration from the poetry of Osip Mandelstam and Joseph Brodsky. The three compositions were recorded at the Lockenhuas Festival 2011 and form “a kind of cycle” in the words of the composer. A unifying factor is “a flavour of the sea”. The topography of St Petersburg, city of canals (“the Venice of the North”) may also be reflected in the project, Kissine says: “Right bank, left bank and the two open arms of the bridge in between. The “Duo After Osip Mandelstam” [for viola and violoncello] begins and ends with a see breeze, while the waves in “Between Two Waves” [concerto for piano and string orchestra] unfurl right up to ‘Barcarola’.” The pieces are also linked by references to Bach, explicit in the Duo and implied in “Between Two Waves” and “Barcarola”.
The music’s signature, however is unmistakably Kissine’s. “Many experiences and emotions – friendship, admiration and affinity – lie beneath the surface of this reticent musical language,” Belgian critc Frans C. Lemaire has noted. “[It] prefers soft murmurings to loud pronouncements, and closely restricts the development of the melodic material. [Kissine’s] music does not celebrate vain and noisy human activity, but seeks to recapture a kind of lost harmony which – far removed from the world – is borne up by the mysterious voices of silence.“