Volume 27 Issue 8 | July 1 - September 20, 2022
Final print issue of Volume 27 (259th, count 'em!). You'll see us in print again mid-September. Inside: A seat at one table at April's "Mayors Lunch" TAF Awards; RCM's 6th edition "Celebration Series" of piano music -- more than ODWGs; Classical and beyond at two festivals; two lakeshore venues reborn; our summer "Green Pages" festival directory; record reviews, listening room and more. On stands Tuesday July 5 2022.
Final print issue of Volume 27 (259th, count 'em!). You'll see us in print again mid-September. Inside: A seat at one table at April's "Mayors Lunch" TAF Awards; RCM's 6th edition "Celebration Series" of piano music -- more than ODWGs; Classical and beyond at two festivals; two lakeshore venues reborn; our summer "Green Pages" festival directory; record reviews, listening room and more. On stands Tuesday July 5 2022.
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awkward intervals, tricky string-crossing – and they play much faster<br />
than they look.<br />
Still, nothing challenges Cotik, who uses a Baroque bow to lovely<br />
effect in the slow sections and to simply dance through the Allegro,<br />
Presto and Vivace movements. There are 44 sections in all, some<br />
only a few bars long, but all are inventive, varied and charming. The<br />
booklet essay says that “every note of these often complex pieces lies<br />
perfectly, if not easily, [my italics] under the bow.”<br />
Well, yes – if you’re as superb a player as Tomás Cotik.<br />
The Bartók sonata also turns up in Ostinata:<br />
works for solo violin, the excellent debut<br />
recording from the young London-based<br />
French violinist Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux<br />
(Champs Hill CHRCD158 champshillrecords.co.uk).<br />
Biber’s Passacaglia in G Minor, “The<br />
Guardian Angel”, the final piece from his<br />
Rosary Sonatas, is followed by Bartók’s<br />
Sonata for Solo Violin and the Prokofiev Sonata in D Major Op.115.<br />
Grażyna Bacewicz’s Sonata No.2 from 1958 and Ysaÿe’s Sonata No.4 in<br />
E Minor Op.<strong>27</strong>, dedicated to Kreisler, complete the disc.<br />
There’s smooth, clean playing throughout, with technical assurance,<br />
strong melodic lines and no hint of roughness – I’ve certainly heard<br />
the Bartók Fuga (which Karl Stobbe interestingly terms “brutal”)<br />
played with more attack and spikiness. The Presto final movement in<br />
the Bacewicz is quite brilliant, and an idiomatic reading of the Ysaÿe<br />
sonata completes a highly satisfying recital.<br />
There should be a warning label on violinist<br />
Patricia Kopatchinskaja CDs: “Fireworks<br />
– handle with care.” You always get something<br />
different and incredibly exciting<br />
from this player who never hesitates to<br />
take risks, and so it is with her latest CD<br />
Le Monde selon George Antheil with<br />
pianist Joonas Ahonen (Alpha Classics<br />
ALPHA797 outhere-music.com/en/albums/<br />
le-monde-selon-george-antheil).<br />
Antheil, the American composer and pianist, caused riots in early<br />
19<strong>20</strong>s Europe as a “Pianist-Futurist” who wrote machine-like and<br />
explosive piano works. Presented here is his astonishing Violin Sonata<br />
No.1 from 1923, its percussive and machine-like outer movements in<br />
particular drawing terrific playing from the duo.<br />
Antheil’s world, referenced in the CD title, included Morton<br />
Feldman and John Cage, the former represented here by the brief<br />
Piece (1950) and Extensions 1 (1951) and Cage by his 1947 Nocturne.<br />
It’s the Violin Sonata No.7 in C Minor Op.30 No.2 by Antheil’s lifelong<br />
hero Beethoven, however, that sees Kopatchinskaja really upping the<br />
excitement levels in a quite remarkable performance.<br />
There’s an outstanding new set of the<br />
complete Beethoven Cello Sonatas,<br />
this time with cellist Alisa Weilerstein<br />
and pianist Inon Barnatan (Pentatone<br />
PTC5186884 pentatonemusic.com/product/<br />
beethoven-cello-sonatas).<br />
The two have been playing together since<br />
<strong>20</strong>08 and are close friends, and their mutual<br />
understanding shows in every moment of<br />
these beautifully judged performances. They were recorded during<br />
the pandemic in <strong>20</strong><strong>20</strong> for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth,<br />
with Weilerstein saying that doing so “at such a fragile, chaotic time”<br />
helped make it an immensely rewarding experience.<br />
It certainly shows in superb performances that will more than hold<br />
their own against any competition.<br />
Denmark’s Nightingale String Quartet<br />
follows up its outstanding first volume<br />
of fellow-countryman Vagn Holmboe’s<br />
complete works in the genre with<br />
Vagn Holmboe String Quartets Vol.2<br />
(Dacapo 6.2<strong>20</strong>717 naxos.com/catalogue/<br />
item.asp?item_code=6.2<strong>20</strong>717).<br />
The three works this time are the String<br />
Quartet No.2 Op.47 from 1949, the String<br />
Quartet No.14 Op.125 from 1975 and the two-movement Quartetto<br />
sereno Op.197 posth., the shortest of Holmboe’s quartets and unofficially<br />
No.21. Started just two months before the composer’s death in<br />
1996, it was completed by his friend and former pupil Per Nørgård.<br />
The exceptionally high standard of the initial volume is continued<br />
here, the publicity material accurately describing the performances as<br />
“energetic, precise yet lively and poetic interpretations” of works<br />
which “stand among the most significant contributions to the genre in<br />
the <strong>20</strong>th century.”<br />
Swordsman, horseman, athlete, violinist,<br />
composer – what a fascinating individual<br />
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges<br />
must have been. SAINT-GEORGES Six<br />
Concertante Quartets is the fourth Naxos<br />
CD devoted to his works, in performances<br />
by the Arabella String Quartet<br />
(8.574360 naxos.com/catalogue/item.<br />
asp?item_code=8.574360).<br />
Saint-Georges wrote three sets of six quartets, starting with Six<br />
Quatuors Op.1 in 1772 and ending with Six Quatuors concertans<br />
What we're listening to this month:<br />
thewholenote.com/listening<br />
Bach and Bartók<br />
Karl Stobbe<br />
Bach & Bartók is available on all<br />
major streaming platforms,<br />
June 17!<br />
Beethoven Cello Sonatas Vol. 1<br />
Yegor Dyachkov, cello<br />
Jean Saulnier, piano<br />
These sonatas and variations for<br />
cello constitute a unique group<br />
within Beethoven’s oeuvre. The<br />
second volume of the complete<br />
works will be released in the fall.<br />
Brian Field:<br />
Choral and Orchestral Works<br />
An exciting collection of<br />
contemporary instrumental, a<br />
cappella choral and accompanied<br />
choral works in superb<br />
performance.<br />
Carlo Monza: Opera in Musica<br />
Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante<br />
Six never-before recorded string<br />
quartets by 18th century Milanese<br />
composer Carlo Monza<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>July</strong> 1 - <strong>September</strong> <strong>20</strong>, <strong>20</strong>22 | 43