Charlie Siem / Itamar Golan BETWEEN THE CLOUDS

 

BETWEEN THE CLOUDS

 

Janine Jansen / Itamar Golan BEAU SOIR

Dutch violin virtuoso Janine Jansen turns her considerable talents to Impressionist and post-Romantic French repertoire in this album devoted to music evocative of the evening, night, and dreams. The recital includes the premiere recordings of three brief works by contemporary French composer Richard Dubugnon, and while they would not be mistaken for products of the early 20th century, their language and sensibility are very much linked to the works of Debussy, Fauré, Lili Boulanger, Messiaen, and Ravel that make up the rest of the album. Jansen has been a generalist, recording works from Vivaldi and Bach to Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Britten. French music has not been a large presence in her repertoire, although she played the premiere of Dubugnon's Violin Concerto, which he wrote for her. For the most part she avoids the wispiness that can afflict interpretations of "Impressionist" repertoire, a term Debussy hated. That delicacy is perfectly suited, however, to Heifetz's arrangement of Debussy's early song, Beau soir. She's entirely successful in Ravel's vigorous Sonata in G major, and she nicely captures the looseness of the music's vernacular elements. Dubugnon's character pieces are lyrical, lovely, and expertly scored. Pianist Itamar Golan provides a strong, nuanced, and idiomatically sensitive accompaniment. Decca's sound is clean and vivid. The closeness of the miking may be a problem for listeners who do not enjoy hearing a player's breathing as a significant performance element. The predictability of Jansen's sniffs as pickups to every phrase, with their volume a sure predictor of the intensity of the phrase, can wear very thin very quickly and mars an otherwise lovely performance. (Stephen Eddins)

Sharon Kam PORTRAIT - Virtuose Klarinettenmusik

Sharon Kam is one of the world’s leading clarinet soloists and has been working with renowned orchestras in the United States, Europe, and Japan for over 20 years.

Mozart’s clarinet masterpieces have been an object of artistic focus for Ms. Kam since the beginning of her career. At the age of 16, she performed the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in her orchestral debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta. A short time later, she performed the Clarinet Quintet with the Guarneri String Quartet in Carnegie Hall, New York.

As part of Mozart’s 250th birthday celebrations at the National Theatre in Prague, her interpretation of the Mozart concerto was televised live in 33 countries and is available on DVD. In the same year, she was able to realize her longtime dream of recording the Concerto and the Clarinet Quintet using the basset clarinet. Contributing to the widely praised disk were eminent string players Isabelle van Keulen, Ulrike-Anima Mathé, Volker Jacobsen and Gustav Rivinus, as well as the Haydn Philharmonie.

As a passionate chamber musician, Sharon Kam regularly works with artists such as Lars Vogt, Christian Tetzlaff, Enrico Pace, Daniel Müller-Schott, Leif Ove Andsnes, Caroline Widmann and the Jerusalem Quartet. She is a frequent guest at festivals in Schleswig-Holstein, Heimbach, Rheingau, Risør, Cork, Verbier, and Delft, as well as the Schubertiade festival. She is also an active performer of contemporary music music and has premiered works by Krzysztof Penderecki (the Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quartet), Herbert Willi (the Clarinet Concerto, at the Salzburg Festival), Iván Erőd and Peter Ruzicka (at Donaueschingen).

Sharon Kam feels at home in a variety of musical genres – from classical to modern music and jazz – a fact reflected in her diverse discography. She received the ECHO “Instrumentalist of the Year” award two times: in 1998, for her Weber recording with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig and Kurt Masur, and in 2006, for her CD with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra featuring works by Spohr, Weber, Rossini and Mendelssohn. Her “American Classics” disc with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by her husband Gregor Bühl, was awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik Prize.

Janine Jansen PROKOFIEV

Janine Jansen is the most subtle of interpreters, and always a sensitive partner. In the Second Violin Concerto, she keeps sentiment at bay, holding back for a sense of mystery in the first movement's counter subject, and capturing an icy purity in the Concerto's central song. She responds cannily to Prokofiev's pared-back orchestral forces. This is not the usual patchwork of ideas, but an argument that Vladimir Jurowski keeps urgently on the move with the LPO soloists . . . Jansen's colleagues in the companion pieces are her equals, too. Boris Brovtsyn marches her otherworldly poise in the first and third movements of the Sonata for two violins. In Prokofiev's dark, masterful Violin Sonata No. 1, the moments of headlong attack are . . . fully realised by pianist Itamar Golan. (David Nice, BBC Music Magazine)

This splendidly recorded performance of the Second Concerto accentuates its stark and sudden contrasts -- the first movement's swings of mood and texture, the Andante's pairing of romantic melody with mechanical accompaniment . . . Jansen's playing, notable for its confident manner and wide expressive nuance . . . persuades us of the validity of her view of the concerto . . . In the Sonata for two violins, Jansen and Brovtsyn employ a wide range of tone colour, matching each other in expansiveness and virtuosity. In the quicker movements they allow the tempo to slow down for quieter passages . . . For me, the highlight of the disc is the Violin Sonata, surely one of Prokofiev's greatest works. Its sombre power is fully revealed in Jansen and Golan's account, from the first movement's anguished double-stopping, brittle pizzicato and icy scale passages, through the ferocious combat and sweet regret of the two middle movements, to the finale's manic energy and intensity.(Duncan Bruce, Gramophone) 

. . . her silvery tone and searching musicianship ensure maximum intelligence and beauty . . . simple, unaffected magic . . . [Concerto]: splendidly played by a soloist in happy harness with the London Philharmonic and Vladimir Jurowski, a conductor who understands Prokofiev's changing moods better than most . . . equally gripping accounts of the Sonata for Two Violins of 1932 and the dark and worried Sonata for Violin and Piano . . . Itamar Golan (piano) and Boris Brovtsyn (violin) play with Jansen as if joined at the hip. Whether the music's fiery or delicate, this superb disc, gorgeously recorded, should give lasting pleasure. (Geoff Brown, The Times)