Mozart - Complete Mature Violin Sonatas Vols 1-3 – Temenuschka Vesselinova,Chiara Banchini

Release Date: 1993-1995 Label: Harmonia Mundi Number of discs: 5 Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Performer: Temenuschka Vesselinova, Chiara Banchini cd info/ buy

Review:

As in their earlier set, of Mozart's Paris and Mannheim sonatas for keyboard and violin (5/94), Temenuschka Vesselinova and Chiara Banchini offer performances of intense conviction, informed by some very interesting and original musical insights. The first six of these seven sonatas are the group Mozart published shortly after he settled in Vienna; they are supplemented by a later work (not, curiously, his next sonata but the one after). Take the first sonata here, K376: the opening movement is treated not as a lively and showy piece but rather as a pensive one, with little touches of passing rubato (the kind Mozart favored, time borrowed and repaid rather than actually stolen) to illuminate the shape or the meaning of a phrase or to add point to the instrumental dialogue. In the Andante too the selective and musicianly use of small-scale rhythmic inflexion is extraordinarily telling, heightening many moments and lending much extra expressive weight to the whole; and the finale is done duly gracefully, with proper significance assigned to its chromatic harmonies and its contrasts of texture. I felt I was hearing much of it afresh. And so it continues. In the K296 first movement these players make lively and witty sense of the dactylic accompanying figure, which so often sounds awkward, and in the second they beautifully catch the vein of sentiment. There is a splendidly exuberant reading of the opening movement of K377, with many happy details of shaping, and the variation movement, with the breadth of their view of its structure, becomes much more than merely decorative. They seem—I remarked on this in the previous set—to have a special feeling for Mozart's variation movements and a capacity to bring to them a real cumulative sense rather than being content to read them as a series of ornamental episodes. The lyrical K378 Sonata is done at a consistently high level of intensity and it comes out much grander and more serious than I have ever heard it before, with plenty of Sturm und Drang in their almost improvisatory account of the Andantino. K378 is anyway an extraordinary piece, and Vesselinova and Banchini make the most of the powerful rhetoric of its opening Adagio, while the G minor Allegro has tremendous fire and the finale, another set of variations, is again powerfully characterized and drawn together. The last of the set, K380, is in its way more classical in its invention, and they play its first movement in a suitably spacious manner, although there is no want of passion in the G minor slow movement. K481, a later work, is done in a more carefully poised manner, with some subtle details of timing; I liked the breadth and urgency of the first-movement development, the tender violin playing in the eloquent Adagio, the scaling and the brilliance of the variation finale.--Gramophone

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Bach arr. Schumann - Violin Sonatas - Schmid, Smirnova

 

 

This CD presents the rarely recorded version of Johann Sebastian Bach's complete solo violin works with piano accompaniment by Robert Schumann. Schumann's piano accompaniment adds a conversational element to the music that I would have sworn I would never have associated with these works. It is a musical conversation across centuries between two great German masters. You should not be worried about Schumann taking over control from Bach - Schumann's added piano part is only accompaniment as the title indicates. Besides this recording emphasizes the violin in the sound picture and places the piano in the background. The playing is good but it doesn't reach John Holloways's (on ECM) metaphysical heights... well, maybe these musicians don't aim for those heights at all... it is more of a human interpretation. Recorded 1994-1995 - good sound. All in all a more than just curious release - recommended.

CD INFO

 

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Beethoven - Last 3 Piano Sonatas Nos 30,31,32 - Rudolf Serkin

Beethoven - Last 3 Piano Sonatas Nos 30,31,32 - Rudolf Serkin
Piano | Eac, Ape, cue | no log, cover | 1 CD, 204 MB
September 1, 2003 | SONY | RapidShare

The Sonata No.30 may be well considered as part of an impressive Trilogy, in which the languid flame of Beethoven begins to vanish. Beethoven has come to the end of the road and searches untiringly an exit door. This autumnal character is visibly remarked by the composer through the employment of the Fugue form in every one of these three works. Beethoven opposes deliberately or unconsciously the Fugue as signal of resigned acceptation, cathartic refugee and warm memories and smartly contrasts this with his fiery and thunderous attacks expressed as Fortissimos to carve in relief of the untamed human spirit. Indeed you may easily realize the Farewell taste, because of the fact all these endings are achieved, just leaving floating the bars, without that marked heroic affirmation of previous works such as Pathetique or Appassionata for instance; on the contrary he accents the ebb tide and tepid atmosphere of the last breath, but loaded with infinite noblesse, without signals of despair, anguish or inner conflict.

I have always thought around the Sonata No. 31 that express like no other else, the "Memory Reverberation", but emancipated of any trace of nostalgia or pain. I would say Beethoven is hovering through his livings, early childhood dreams and illusions, adopting a similar attitude that you or me assume when open an old photographs album.

Finally the Sonata No.32 anticipates from the second Movement a journey without return; and that unstoppable sensation of unavoidable missing in the thickness of an unending night is only agreabled for a very brief motive that reminds us to the first seed of an unborn musical genre: the jazz. The last Movement is loaded with such dramatic density and furtive evanescence that engages even the most indifferent listener.

As you may know, most pianists follow the loyal tradition that has become a non sacred ritual, that consists in playing these last three Sonatas in tandem, without playing any encore.

CD Content
# Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
# Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110
# Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111