Emmanuel Pahud / Münchner Rundfunkorchester / Ivan Repušić DREAMTIME

DREAMTIME

Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal / Kent Nagano PENDERECKI St. Luke Passion

ST. LUKE PASSION

Polska Filharmonia Kameralna Sopot / Wojciech Rajski PENDERECKI Symphony No. 6 "Chinese Songs" - Concerto per Clarinetto

                 SYMPHONY No. 6 "CHINESE SONGS" - CONCERTO PER CLARINETTO

Daniel Rowland / Maja Bogdanović PAS DE DEUX

                                                                   PAS DE DEUX

Messages Quartet MESSAGES

                                                                     MESSAGES

Anne-Sophie Mutter HOMMAGE À PENDERECKI

The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the composer and conductor Krzysztof Penderecki are among the leading musical figures of our age. For more than thirty years these two outstanding musicians have been close friends, and during that time their friendship has proved a fruitful one, repeatedly inspiring and challenging both parties. To mark the composer’s eighty-fifth birthday Deutsche Grammophon is now releasing a very special double album featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter both as a soloist and in partnership with a number of colleagues. All the works that are included here reflect Penderecki’s unique musical language in fascinatingly intense and multifaceted ways. The result is a sensitive and moving homage on the part of the violinist to a musical friend whose Second Violin Sonata she has recorded for the first time.

Penderecki’s works have an existential depth to them that goes far beyond the sheer sensuousness of the musical world that they inhabit. Anne-Sophie Mutter compares their complex, multifaceted nature to the canvases of Pablo Picasso, so varied, extreme and contrastive are they. For the composer himself these works are the end result of a creative process that is both tireless and extremely demanding. As he himself puts it: “I like travelling uncharted pathways. I have to do this whenever I compose, otherwise nothing comes out. I start somewhere in the middle of a work, before moving to the right or left and time and again having to get back on course, which often means retracing my steps. I continue to compose until it becomes clear to me that I could really do it much better. I then start at the beginning.” Penderecki has retained this self-critical attitude right up to the present day. It is an attitude that places enormous demands on him. The works that have come into existence in this way afford impressive proof of his uncompromising dedication to music and provide thrilling evidence of his ability to explore the emotional extremes of human existence.

This double album brings together various pieces that Penderecki has written for the violin and that are performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter in ways that bring out their wealth of tone colours and captivating expressivity, while also striking a personal note. In addition to La Follia, a virtuoso set of variations for unaccompanied violin, and the dialogue-like concert duet for violin and double bass that Anne-Sophie Mutter has recorded with the bass player Roman Patkoló, it is two large-scale, complex works that are at the heart of the present release. Both reflect Penderecki’s multilayered and hugely expressive art of composition. Laid out along symphonic lines, the Second Violin Concerto – subtitled Metamorphosen – was premiered by Anne-Sophie Mutter in 1995: “For me this task is physically and psychologically challenging, but it is a challenge that I am grateful to accept,” says the violinist about the extremely demanding and contrastive work, in which Penderecki provides a virtuoso amalgam of the most varied styles. Like the Second Violin Concerto, the Second Violin Sonata is dedicated to Anne-Sophie Mutter, who has recorded it for the present album with the pianist Lambert Orkis. The piece is in five movements and resembles a dramatic disquisition on life that ultimately leaves the listener emotionally moved.

Penderecki and Mutter have been friends for many years. It is a friendship that has proved inspirational. They first got to know each other in the early 1980s, although it was not until 1988 that they began to work together closely. This was the year in which the then twenty-five-year-old violinist played Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto under Penderecki’s direction. From the outset the conductor was fascinated by her musical maturity. Their musical association has lasted until the present day. For Anne-Sophie Mutter, it is “far more than mere admiration that has bound me to Krzysztof Penderecki’s works for several decades. I am shaken to the very roots of my being by the depth of emotion that issues from them – almost more than I am by his genius as a composer.” With this double album, Hommage à Penderecki, the violinist pays touching tribute to a truly exceptional composer and to their mutual friendship.

Elina Vähälä / Niek De Groot DUOS FOR VIOLIN AND DOUBLE BASS

Dutch double bassist Niek de Groot is one of today's leading soloists. Originally a trumpet-player he started playing the double-bass at 18. Within an unusually short time he became principal bass with several European ensembles, including a 10 year tenure as first solo-bass with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

After his formal studies he further developed his skills at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada. Niek's playing has benefited a great deal also from attending masterclasses with eminent cellists Frans Helmerson, Lluìs Claret, Laurence Lesser and in collaborations with Leonard Bernstein, György Sebök and Mstislav Rostropovich. 

Since 2006 Niek de Groot has dedicated himself entirely to chamber music and solo performances. He performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician at the best known concerthalls and music festivals. A new well received solo CD for NIMBUS was released in 2015. The first volume of the Hoffmeister solo-quartets and Rossini sonatas for BIS-records was released in 2017. The second volume will arrive later in 2018. A new recording with contemporary violin/bass Duos for AUDITE is on the market since February 2018.  His repertoire includes a great deal of contemporary music and he has worked closely with composers such as Kurtág, Stockhausen, Saariaho, Vasks and Gubaidulina.

​For this recording, Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä and Dutch double bass player Niek de Groot have chosen and performed seven pieces, composed by six Europeans and one Korean. When a violin and a double bass come together, two sound spheres collide: particularly in recent times, many renowned composers have been inspired to create highly original realisations of such encounters.

Kristina Fialová INTRODUCTION

Kristina Fialová has been primarily praised by the critics for her impeccable technique, impassioned performance and sophisticated musical sentiment. After winning the 2013 Michal Spisak International Competition in Katowice, Poland, she was invited to the major concert stages in Europe. Her appearance at the prestigious Tivoli Festival in Denmark was followed by her debuting at the Tonhalle Zürich and giving a recital at the 2015 Prague Spring festival.

Kristina Fialová studied at the Brno Conservatory, the Hochschüle für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden (Prof. Vladimír Bukač), the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen (Profs. Tim Frederikson and Lars Anders Tomter), and the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Prof. Jan Pěruška). She further honed her skills at master classes led by top-notch soloists and pedagogues around the world (Leif Ove Andsnes, Wolfram Christ, Sheila Browne, Tatiana Masurenko, Jerry Horner, Helen Callus, Charles Avsharian, Václav Hudeček, Siegfried Frühlinger).

The virtuosic young Czech viola player Kristina Fialová presents contemporary and 20th-century works by Rózsa, Godár, Penderecki, Khachaturian, Stravinsky and Bodorová. Great performances of music by composers from middle and Eastern Europe.

Kim Kashkashian / Stuttgarter Kammerorchester / Dennis Russell Davies LACHRYMAE

Lachrymae was my second exposure to the brilliance of violist Kim Kashkashian, after her ECM recording of Paul Hindemith’s viola sonatas. It has long been one of my favorites of hers, as its emotional and tonal complexities are high points of the New Series catalog. The program here is modest—consisting of only three pieces—but heavy. The opening strains of Hindemith’s Trauermusik paint a grave and darkening picture. Composed in a six-hour stretch of creative fervor in the afternoon following the death of King George V in 1936, the piece mourns the fall of the monarchical figurehead by describing a musical effigy in his place. Hindemith gave the premier performance that very evening in a special BBC live broadcast. And indeed, the music has that very quality: a lost message somehow regained and spread across the airwaves in a time of great sorrow.

The album’s title work comes from Benjamin Britten and is performed here in its glorious 1975 orchestrated version (for the earlier viola/piano version, check out Kashkashian’s Elegies, also on ECM). Britten has subtitled the work “Reflections on a Song of John Dowland,” thereby lending it a rather bold intertextual potency. And while it goes without saying that Kashkashian’s soloing is first rate here, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra casts an even more enchanting spell as it binds each motivic cell with fluid grace.

Which brings us to Krzysztof Penderecki’s Konzert für Viola und Kammerorchester. The result of a 1983 commission from the Venezuelan government in honor of freedom fighter Simón Bolívar, the concerto marks a distinct shift in the composer’s aesthetic of virtuosity. Much in contrast to the density of his earlier concertos, here Penderecki cultivates a more intimate sound palette. Yet none of the color his work is known for is lost. We still get a meticulously constructed object adorned with all manner of timbres and percussive details.

In my opinion, Lachrymae showcases some of the most powerful music written for the viola. And who better than Kashkashian to wring out every last tear from this trio of captivating scores? This music is wrought in sadness and refined through a nurturing touch from its composers and musicians alike. It is not the spirit made manifest, but the manifest made spirit. (ECM Reviews)

Roman Mints / Evgenia Chudinovich TRANSFORMATIONS 20th Century Works for Violin & Piano

This album brings together some of the best music for violin & piano written in the last century. Alongside with the such well-known masters Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Gubaidulina and Schnitttke we can hear works of their younger collegues Elena Langer and Artem Vassiliev. Both performes demonstrate their virtuosity in interpretating this extremly demanding repertoir. 5 pieces by Artem Vassiliev take us on a journey trough modern styles from minimalism to jazz.

The title work, "Transformations" by Elena Langer is very romantic, fresh and impressive piece which changes from a dream world of first movement through an agressive and ecstatic mood of the second to the "new light" in the end. The work is probably the most appealing on the disc. Lutoslawski's Subito is a demanding virtuoso piece which gives Mints a chance to show his seductive tone and his command of the instrument. Part's Fratres is a religious meditation executed with great feeling. Works by Gubaidulina and Penderecki involve pianist playing inside piano and thus, explore new sound dimensions. In general, this album is outstanding and is a joy to listen to. (Amazon)

Anne-Sophie Mutter / Lambert Orkis THE SILVER ALBUM

Chemistry is one of the most mysterious aspects of the performing arts, especially when it comes to music. In athletics, the chemistry among teammates is almost always right before us. When Larry Bird made eyes-closed, over-the-head, backwards passes to Kevin McHale or Robert Parish, we had the benefit of watching slow-motion replays. And even before television, when the early 20th Century Chicago Cubs turned a double play, going from "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" (as a famous poem says), the North Side crowd in the stands could see that unspoken understanding among the three players at work before their eyes.

Musical chemistry, when right, is almost impossible to discern. Two musicians with an innate, natural understanding of interpretation and expression meld together seamlessly when that chemistry is at its best.

Such is the case with violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and pianist Lambert Orkis. To be clear, either one of these two raises the level of any collaboration to new heights. But when combined, their vision is as one, reaching a transcendence few other duos can match.

They first worked together in 1988, and to mark the occasion of a quarter-century of shared musical experiences, they've released The Silver Album.

Over the course of two discs, the duo treats us to sonatas by Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, and Fauré. A few of the lovely encores by Fritz Kreisler make for a sweet palette cleanser, including Schön Rosmarin, Caprice viennois, and Liebeslied. And a dose of spice kicks in with a few Hungarian Dances by Brahms.

Two recent works, both dedicated to Anne-Sophie Mutter, give the collection a variety only music of our time can provide. La Follia was written by Krzysztof Penderecki last year as the composer celebrated his 80th birthday (which included a visit to the Boston Symphony Orchestra). And André Previn's Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2, completed in 2011, received its first performance only six months ago.

According to Gavin Plumley at Sinfini Music, The double-disc survey opens with a punchy rendition of Beethoven’s Seventh Violin Sonata, in which the pair offers fiery counterpoint and lustre in more lyrical passages. It’s an approach that pays equally impressive dividends in Brahms’s Second Sonata and Hungarian Dances, as well as Penderecki and Previn’s new works for the duo. The solo La Follia, by the Polish composer, is full of Baroque flash and finesse, while Previn’s Second Violin Sonata bridges past and present with considerable panache. (WGBH)

Tamsin Waley-Cohen SOLI Works for Solo Violin by BARTÓK, PENDERECKI, BENJAMIN, CARTER & KURTÁG

There is nothing like the experience of being completely alone on stage, just with my violin. It is the ultimate soul-baring communion both with myself and with the audience. And it is no coincidence that many of the works written for solo violin explore the depths of our shared human experience through this intense medium.

For musicians, composers and performers alike, sound is our medium. Through sound we must express everything we wish to communicate. The works on this disc take the violin to its expressive limits. The technical demands on the performer are always in the service of heightened expression, whether of ecstasy, pain, doubt, loneliness, desperation, or acceptance and peace. For me, this is at the heart of why I play the violin, and why I play music, to explore our inner life through the language of sound.

Each composer on this disc displays a great depth of knowledge and understanding of the instrument, not only how it can be played, but of how natural resonances interact, uniting or jarring or distorting, often using the open strings as building blocks. Although there are moments when the writing is at the edge of what is playable, it is always possible, and the struggle can even add to the content.

The recording process was extraordinarily intense, not only because I was alone in the hall. The emotional rawness of the material took its toll each day, so in the evening, to play a Kurtag miniature was a wonderful balm.I would like to say an enormous thank you to Nick Parker and Mike Hatch who produced and engineered this disc, and for the invaluable support they gave during the recording sessions. (Tamsin Waley-Cohen)

Dana Zemtsov ENIGMA Works for Solo Viola

Unlikely other stringed instruments the viola repertoire hasn't been as thoroughly explored, but this colourful anyhology of music for solo viola contains some of the most challenging works. Famous for her soulful dedication to the viola Dana Zemtsov takes the listener along to a world of warm, deeply touching sounds. She wants to warn the listener for the music on her debut recording: ... here one will scarsely find
lyrical melodies and heartwarming beauty with which music is so often associated.
Instead, there will be tales of war, perplexed wanderings through obscured labyrinths, intense cries of despair, sour tears of sorrow, maybe at places an ironic grinn...
For 2014 and 2015 Channel Classics and Dana agreed on two more recordings, one with piano acccompaniment and another with orchestra.
Winner of numerous competitions and developing an outstanding career, Dana Zemtsov (b. 1992) is one of the most promising international viola soloists of her generation.
Highlights in the 2012 / 13 season include Dana’s performance of the Bartók Viola Concerto in the Great Hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, chamber music with Janine Jansen and Martin Frost during the Utrecht Chamber Music Festival and a recital in Carnegie Hall of New York.
Dana is First Prize laureate of several competitions in Luxemburg, Italy, Austria, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands. In 2010 she won the Dutch Television competition ‘Evening of the Young Musician’ becoming the ‘Young Musician of the Year’ and representing The Netherlands at the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in Vienna.
Dana is regularly appearing on the most important international stages and festivals as well as chamber music partner as soloist.
Dana Zemtsov was born in 1992 in Mexico City. She comes from a family of musicians. At the age of 5 she received her first music lessons from her grandmother and from her parents, both viola players, Mikhail Zemtsov and Julia Dinerstein. Since 2012 she studies with the famous viola virtuoso Michael Kugel.

Anne-Sophie Mutter / New York Philharmonic RIHM Lichtes Spiel / CURRIER Time Machines

Time and again she seeks out the challenge of a first performance – perhaps, too, because she regards the chance to engage in a dialogue with living composers as a form of refuge before she returns to a repertory she has known for thirty years and which she nonetheless feels each time is a terra incognita. Above all, however, Anne-Sophie Mutter is motivated by the desire to keep on rediscovering the violin. That is why she seeks out composers who can coax new sounds from her instrument, finding new musical languages and awakening a new sensuality.

She also enjoys returning to musicians she knows. “In the life of a soloist there’s more than just one facet. After premiering a concerto, I generally want a chamber work. This was the case with Krzysztof Penderecki’s Metamorphosen and would also have been the case with Witold Lutosławski if he hadn’t died first.” Wolfgang Rihm’s violin concerto from 1991, Gesungene Zeit, was initially followed by a second orchestral work, Lichtes Spiel, which received its first performance in New York in 2010. But this last-named work was followed almost at once by a piece of chamber music: Dyade. The differences between the two orchestral works are clear for all to hear and see. For Lichtes Spiel, Anne-Sophie Mutter wanted a Mozart orchestra. “For years I’ve been conducting Mozart’s concertos from the violin. I wanted to compare and contrast these wonderful pieces with an alternative work that would be similarly orchestrated but which would contain new markings for the violin.” She had hoped that the resultant restrictions would inspire her, and in this she was to be proved right. “The decision to forgo a vast body of percussion instruments and an elaborate brass department leads necessarily to a greater concentration on the innermost quality of the principal instrument, which is the violin’s singing tone.” This singing tone is central to Rihm’s work, which is subtitled “A Summer Piece”. For Anne-Sophie Mutter, the “light game” conjures up associations of a summer night, a midsummer night’s dream, while the flashing accents of the score recall Shakespeare’s will-o’-the-wisps. “Time and again the flickering lights illuminate an almost romantic in-between state. Perhaps this is where the idea for Lichtes Spiel originates. I find these flickering accents typical of Rihm’s work in general – they were already present in Gesungene Zeit. The manner in which an emotion suddenly flares up and an interval abruptly comes to the forefront of our attention, only for it to withdraw again, is characteristic of Rihm’s musical language in Dyade, too.” (Oswald Beaujean)