The bicentenary of Robert Schumann’s birth had a pretty low-key reception in 2010, competing as it was against Chopin’s and against the recent 150th of Schumann’s death. Amid the recordings that came my way, one that pinned my ears back was the violinist Ilya Gringolts taking on the much-underplayed second sonata – and doing so with captivating zest.
http://www.onyxclassics.com/normanlebrecht/ONYX4053-5.mp3.zip
Schumann: Violin Sonata no.2 in D minor op.121 – II Sehr
lebhaft
Check the www.scena.org review:
Violin sonatas 1-3
(Onyx)
***
Ilya Gringolts and pianist Peter Laul take a sunny approach to the sonatas, a welcome change from the usual gloom and doom. The first two are mid-romantic meditations, the third a posthumous reconstruction. Gringolts is velvety and seductive in the softer passages, avoiding the pursuit of speed and showmanship, a natural storyteller.
The recording was issued on the Onyx label, a really interesting enterprise started five years ago by a pair of executive drop-outs from the crumbling corporate biz. Here is what I wrote about them at the time. I’m glad to see that many of their expectations (and mine) have been fulfilled. Enjoy Gringolts in Schumann. More to come in the festive days ahead.
The bicentenary of Robert Schumann’s birth had a pretty low-key reception in 2010, competing as it was against Chopin’s and against the recent 150th of Schumann’s death. Amid the recordings that came my way, one that pinned my ears back was the violinist Ilya Gringolts taking on the much-underplayed second sonata – and doing so with captivating zest.
http://www.onyxclassics.com/normanlebrecht/ONYX4053-5.mp3.zip
Schumann: Violin Sonata no.2 in D minor op.121 – II Sehr
lebhaft
Check the www.scena.org review:
Violin sonatas 1-3
(Onyx)
***
Ilya Gringolts and pianist Peter Laul take a sunny approach to the sonatas, a welcome change from the usual gloom and doom. The first two are mid-romantic meditations, the third a posthumous reconstruction. Gringolts is velvety and seductive in the softer passages, avoiding the pursuit of speed and showmanship, a natural storyteller.
The recording was issued on the Onyx label, a really interesting enterprise started five years ago by a pair of executive drop-outs from the crumbling corporate biz. Here is what I wrote about them at the time. I’m glad to see that many of their expectations (and mine) have been fulfilled. Enjoy Gringolts in Schumann. More to come in the festive days ahead.
Idealists the world over will be aware by now that John Cage’s posthumous bid to launch a Christmas number one was defeated by the X-Factor machine and other forces of darkness.
… In reality only 15,716 people actually paid for the track compared to the audience for the Official Chart Show which is at least 1.4 million. We decided that while most of them would like to know where the single charted they would be significantly less interested in hearing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of near silence. I completely understand your frustration, but in this case the decision was about pleasing the majority of BBC Radio 1’s listeners rather than a minority”
Idealists the world over will be aware by now that John Cage’s posthumous bid to launch a Christmas number one was defeated by the X-Factor machine and other forces of darkness.
… In reality only 15,716 people actually paid for the track compared to the audience for the Official Chart Show which is at least 1.4 million. We decided that while most of them would like to know where the single charted they would be significantly less interested in hearing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of near silence. I completely understand your frustration, but in this case the decision was about pleasing the majority of BBC Radio 1’s listeners rather than a minority”
My first free download for the festive season, courtesy of Orchid Classics, is one of my most-played tracks of 2010. It’s called Milo and it was written by the British composer Mark-Antony Turnage for his baby son and played by one of his close friends, cellist Guy Johnson. My review, from April, appears below.
Mark-Anthony Turnage, 50 this year, is the most distinctive of British composers with an instantly recognisable sound. This disc is built around his music for cello and piano – a set of three lullabies and the captivating Milo, named for his baby son and so tender that you wonder whether this could possibly be the same composer who wrote the savage opera, Greek.
But Turnage, even at his most domesticated, has a wiry, terse muscularity that steers him clear of cliché and imprints his signature on the score. I don’t think I could manage to fall asleep to any of these pieces, but I do keep wanting to hear them again. The cellist is the sweet-toned Guy Johnston and he is partnered by Katharine Stott who, in one of the companion pieces – the Benjamin Britten C major sonata of 1961 – achieves an ear-pricking bell-like effect on the piano to match the cello’s pizzicato.
The remaining pieces on disc are by Britten’s teacher, Frank Bridge. Written just before and during the First World War, they are neither as penetrative as Elgar’s parallel cello reflections nor as pungent as Britten. All credit, though, to the small Orchid label that produced this thoughtful compilation, none of it obviously commercial yet, on second hearing, irresistible. Guy Johnson, it turns out, is godfather to baby Milo. Something more than music went into the making of this album.
For hundreds of musicians who have been stranded in airports and hotel rooms across western Europe, their concerts cancelled or ill-attended, their credit cards maxed out, many of them wondering how they will ever get home in time for the holidays.
For hundreds of musicians who have been stranded in airports and hotel rooms across western Europe, their concerts cancelled or ill-attended, their credit cards maxed out, many of them wondering how they will ever get home in time for the holidays.
From next Monday, and daily throughout the holiday period, I shall be offering free classical downloads on this site from two of the most attractive boutique labels, a pair of independent outlets that do not get as much attention as their output deserves.
From next Monday, and daily throughout the holiday period, I shall be offering free classical downloads on this site from two of the most attractive boutique labels, a pair of independent outlets that do not get as much attention as their output deserves.
The Guardian reports that arts cuts by Birmingham Council have been agreed at 17 percent, down from £12m to £10.1 million, which is nowhere near Monday’s leaked worst-case scenario.
The Guardian reports that arts cuts by Birmingham Council have been agreed at 17 percent, down from £12m to £10.1 million, which is nowhere near Monday’s leaked worst-case scenario.