Volume 24 Issue 7 - April 2019

STRINGS
ATTACHED
TERRY ROBBINS
Ascent is the first solo album by the 26-yearold
American violist Matthew Lipman, and
also marks his debut on the Cedille Records
label (CDR 90000 184 cedillerecords.org). He
is accompanied by his regular duo partner,
American pianist Henry Kramer. The creative
process behind the CD started when Lipman
asked American composer Clarice Assad to
write a fantasy piece for viola and piano in
memory of his mother. Lipman chose the Ascent title to describe the
album’s music and “the upward movement that happens throughout
life and after.”
The opening track is the Phantasy for Viola and Piano Op.54 from
1914 by the English composer York Bowen. It’s a simply gorgeous
work which perfectly showcases the warmth, lightness and agility of
Lipman’s playing as well as the top-notch contribution from Kramer.
The standard never drops throughout the world premiere recording
of Assad’s two-part Metamorfose or Robert Schumann’s four
Märchenbilder Op.113.
Fuga libre by the Irish violist and composer Garth Knox is the only
solo viola work on the CD. Written in 2008 for the Tokyo International
Viola Competition, it uses some really interesting effects, including
quite fascinating harmonic glissandi.
Shostakovich’s very brief (at 1:56) Impromptu for Viola and Piano
Op.33, written in 1931 but not discovered until 2017, is another world
premiere recording, Lipman having managed to obtain a pre-publication
transcript of the score from the DSCH Publishing House. A viola
arrangement of Franz Waxman’s virtuosic Carmen Fantasie brings an
outstanding CD to a close, Lipman’s flawless technique, beautiful tone
and consummate musicianship making for viola playing as fine as any
you will hear.
It’s difficult to think of a more exciting duo
than violinist Alina Ibragimova and her
long-time pianist partner Cédric Tiberghien.
Their 3-CD live recital set of the complete
Beethoven violin sonatas contained some
electrifying performances, and they bring
the same level of playing to their latest CD,
Vierne & Franck: Violin Sonatas, a recital of
works that pay homage in their own ways to
19th-century musical thinking, their fairly dense textures and serious
nature being qualities that would be rejected in post-WWI Paris
(Hyperion CDA68204 hyperion-records.co.uk).
The Poème élégiaque Op.12 by Eugène Ysaÿe opens the CD – and
what an opening it is! Published in the piano version in 1893 and
the first of Ysaÿe’s nine Poèmes for string instruments and orchestra,
it was inspired by the death and funeral scenes from Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet and employs scordatura tuning for darker colour,
the low G string being tuned down to F. It’s a rhapsodic, passionate
work that perfectly showcases this duo’s strengths: tone, nuance,
intelligence, passion, commitment, and flawless technical assurance.
César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major was written in 1886 as a
wedding present for Ysaÿe; it’s been popular for so long that hearing
it again is like revisiting an old and treasured friend, and the visit here
is a truly lovely one. The connections between the works on the disc
continue with Louis Vierne’s outstanding Violin Sonata in G Minor
Op.23. Vierne was a pupil of Franck, and this sonata was written
at Ysaÿe’s request and premiered by him in 1908. It’s a sweeping
work much in the style of the Franck, and deserves to be much
better known.
The brief Nocturne from 1911 by the 18-year-old Lili Boulanger,
Nadia’s younger sister, acts as a light dessert after the richness that has
preceded it, and ends a CD of music-making of the highest order.
Whenever there’s another CD from the
always wonderful Steven Isserlis in the
new releases, you just know you’re in for
something special, and so it proves yet
again with Shostakovich & Kabalevsky
Cello Sonatas, Isserlis being joined by his
recital partner of over 30 years, pianist Olli
Mustonen (Hyperion CDA68239
hyperion-records.co.uk).
The Shostakovich Sonata in D Minor Op.40, written in 1934 when
the composer was in his late 20s, sets the tone for the whole CD,
Isserlis displaying his usual full-blooded and passionate, yet always
sensitive and musically intelligent playing, especially in the opening
movement and the fiendish and demonic second. Mustonen is his
equal in every respect.
Prokofiev’s Ballade in C Major Op.15 is an early work from 1912
when the composer was only 21; it is essentially in two halves,
Prokofiev referring to it as “similar in form to a sonata in two
movements.”
There’s no doubting the strength and quality of Kabalevsky’s Sonata
in B-flat major Op.71, written for Rostropovich in 1962. Isserlis notes
that this is a work that should really be heard more often, and his
performance here makes an even stronger case.
Three short works round out the CD. Shostakovich’s brief (at 2:31)
Moderato was only published in 1986 after being discovered in a
Moscow archive alongside the manuscript of the Cello Sonata. It’s
believed to be from the same period, but its real provenance remains
unknown. Prokofiev’s Adagio – Cinderella and the Prince is a 1944
arrangement of a section from his ballet Cinderella. Kabalevsky’s
Rondo in memory of Prokofiev Op.79 was the third of three test-piece
Rondos he wrote for the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow – one
for piano in 1958, one for violin in 1962 and this one in 1965. It’s quite
substantial, with more than a hint of Prokofiev’s music, especially the
wispy “wind-in-the-graveyard” effect from the first violin sonata.
In his usual outstanding booklet notes Isserlis includes his
customary exact timing references to salient points in the works,
adding an extra touch of class to a simply outstanding CD.
In his introductory booklet notes to Bach:
The Cello Suites (Hyperion CDA68261
hyperion-records.co.uk) the German
cellist Alban Gerhardt reveals that, like so
many others, he was reluctant to even try
recording these challenging works before
turning 50 – which he does this coming
May. He is also aware that any recording can
never be a final word.
For some time Gerhardt studied Baroque performance practice, but
felt his attempts to assimilate historically informed techniques didn’t
work for him, his playing sounding “neither authentic nor musically
very interesting. I came to realize that just turning off the vibrato and
using a sound which barely touched the surface of the string actually
had very little to do with historical performance and didn’t sit well
with me as a musician.”
He consequently uses vibrato “with great care and control” and
aims for “a seemingly effortless articulation with as much depth to the
sound as possible.” Add Gerhardt’s 1710 Matteo Gofriller cello and the
results are simply beautiful. It’s a set that easily holds its own in a very
competitive field.
With the BIS Super Audio CD Tan Dun: Fire Ritual – Violin Concertos
we enter the distinctive sound world of the Chinese composer Tan
Dun, now in his early 60s. The Norwegian violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing
has been collaborating with the composer since 2010, a relationship
which resulted in the creation of both of the works on the CD: the
thewholenote.com April 2019 | 71