Janine Jansen / Antonio Pappano 12 STRADIVARI

 

12 STRADIVARI

Janine Jansen / Mischa Maisky / Lucas Debargue SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Trio No. 1

 

PIANO TRIO NO. 1

Mischa Maisky / Lily Maisky ADAGIETTO

This very personal album, dedicated to Mischa Maisky’s young daughter Mila, features all-new recordings with his daughter Lily Maisky (piano). It features relaxing and inspiring popular melodies from the Bach/Marcello Adagio to Grieg’s “Solveig’s Song”, from Massenet’s “Méditation” to Tchaikovsky’s “Valse sentimentale”.

It also includes a multi-track arrangement of Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony with Mischa playing all parts (except the part for harp) – a truly captivating all-cello version of this classic.

Three bonus live recordings with Martha Argerich, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, and Sascha Maisky.

Janine Jansen / Joris van Rijn / Benjamin Schmid 24 CAPRICCIOS FOR VIOLIN FROM THE NETHERLANDS

In 1998, the Rotterdam Arts Foundation commissioned 24 Dutch composers to write short works, or "capriccios", for solo violin, clearly with the idea of being a modern counterpart to the 24 caprices of Paganini. The one main rule was to compose acoustically, i.e. no use of electronics/remixing, overdubbing, or other outside means of sound besides the violin on its own and the violinist on her/his own. The Dutch music publishing house Donemus published these works in a single collected volume in 1999. All of these works received their premieres that same year at the International Gaudeamus Interpreters' Competition, which centered on the violin that year.
Starting just on presentation, in a very egalitarian spirit, the 24 works are divided equally among the album's three violinists, with each violinist playing 8 capriccios, divided equally among the two CDs, so that each violinist performs 4 of the capriccios on each CD. With perhaps a touch of chivalry as well, the album has a "ladies first" format, with a young pre-famous Janine Jansen, aged ~20, performing the first 4 capriccios on each CD. Joris van Rijn takes the second set of 4 on each CD, and Benjamin Schmid the last set of 4 on each CD. (The egalitarian division of the players doesn't extend to the list of composers, as only two female composers are represented in the collection, Caroline Ansink and Vanessa Lamm.)

Martin Fröst / Lucas Debargue / Janine Jansen / Torleif Thedéen MESSIAEN Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps

The Quartet for the End of Time is intensely personal music and it deserves an equally personal response from anyone playing it now. When Martin Fröst overheard a rehearsal through an open window as a teenager at a music camp, he was transfixed: ‘I was bewitched … and I ended up walking away from the house that day with a different view on the world.’

It was the first work he played with Janine Jansen when they met 16 years ago and the cellist on that occasion was Thorleif Thedéen. This was a transforming experience for all three musicians. Martin Fröst remembers it as ‘one of life’s rare and profound musical moments, when everything comes together and you are left with a deep sense of connection not only to the piece, but to each other – we have been trying to find the right circumstances to record the piece together ever since.’

Finally, these musicians have brought this cherished project to fruition, joined by the brilliant pianist Lucas Debargue. The deep expressive power of the Quartet was brought home to them once again – and the time was right too: ‘As the world has been marking and reflecting upon the several anniversaries of the World Wars in recent years, it felt that now was the perfect time to get this project off the ground, especially too as I feel the music, is still as relevant in today’s political climate as it was in 1941.’
 

MICHEL VAN DER AA Violin Concerto - Hysteresis

Michel van der Aa’s new Violin Concerto for Janine Jansen received its first performance on 6 November in Amsterdam, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. Van der Aa has described the partnership of Jansen and the RCO as his “dream team”. It combines an orchestra with whom he now has a long-standing and intimate relationship, and a soloist with a magnetic stage presence and a heart-on-sleeve style of playing, ideally suited to Van der Aa’s direct and physically expressive music. As “house composer” for the RCO since 2011, he was able to work unusually closely with the players, checking details throughout the period of composition. He has also been free to write the works he chooses. In this case, it was Jansen’s personality that served as inspiration, and the composer claims that “If Janine had played the flute, I would have written a flute concerto.” 

The piece has its roots in the classical concerto – unusually for him, Van der Aa hasn’t even included any electronics – but he couldn’t resist giving it a distinctly theatrical quality. “As an opera director, I love the theatrical possibilities of having someone who is the embodiment of the work.” The theatre begins in Jansen’s presence and personality, but extends across the whole stage. The lead violinist and cellist are drawn in as secondary soloists, and with Jansen often form a trio of their own. 

Their energy spreads outwards to three percussionists, harp, the string groups and finally the whole orchestra. Those lines of transmission are articulated visually as well as aurally – the three percussionists are spaced among the orchestra not only because of the way that distribution sounds, but also because of how it looks. Visual considerations extend to the stage lighting and even to the type of dress the soloist wears. “Yes, I am a control freak,” admits Van der Aa, “But in addition to the music all these aspects are of great importance to the total experience.”
The concerto is composed in the traditional three movements. Van der Aa describes the first as abstract, the second as more direct and melodic, and the third as very fast, performed at breakneck speed and close to the edge of possibility. Like Van der Aa’s other recent pieces – the opera Sunken Garden and the clarinet concerto Hysteresis – it also includes allusions to popular styles; in this case to jazz and bluegrass. With no electronics or video, the alter ego role familiar from many other Van der Aa pieces is taken up by the orchestra, which mirrors and balances the soloist, rather than playing a traditional accompanying role. (Tim Rutherford-Johnson)

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)

DOBRINKA TABAKOVA String Paths

ECM New Series presents the first full album devoted to the music of Dobrinka Tabakova, a composer born in Bulgaria in 1980 but raised from a young age in London and educated there. In Tabakova’s music – richly melodic, texturally sensuous, often emotionally radiant – there resides the new and the familiar, or rather the familiar within the new, and vice versa; there are the spirits of East and West coursing through the pieces, usually hand in hand; and just as the composer’s technical virtuosity is apparent, she possesses a desire, and a talent, for direct communication that can be heard in virtually every measure. The recording features Tabakova’s Concerto for Cello and Strings, plus the Rameau-channelling Suite in Old Style for viola and chamber orchestra. Then there are three chamber works: the string trio Insight, the string septet Such Different Paths and a trio for violin, accordion and double-bass, Frozen River Flows. The performers include violinist Janine Jansen and several of Tabakova’s former conservatory colleagues: violinist Roman Mints, violist-conductor Maxim Rysanov and cellist Kristina Blaumane, principal with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Tabakova’s music has a particularly 21st-century feel for its broad palette – its free mix of tonality and modality, of folk-music influence and the example of past masters. Her ECM debut came about after a happenstance meeting of the composer with label founder-producer Manfred Eicher at the Lockenhaus Festival in Austria, where Rysanov was performing Tabakova’s Suite in Old Style (part of a triptych of suites she has written for him, along with a concerto). The resulting album presents Tabakova works from 2002 through 2008. (ECM Records)