Ahmet Adnan Saygun - Cello Concerto; Viola Concerto (Tim Hugh; Mirjam Tschopp)

Information

Composer: Ahmet Adnan Saygun

• Cello Concerto, Op. 74
• Viola Concerto, Op. 59

Tim Hugh, cello

Mirjam Tschopp, viola

Bilkent Symphony Orchestra

Howard Griffiths, conductor

Date: 2007

Label: CPO
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/Ahmed-Adnan-Saygun-1907-1991-Cellokonzert-op-74/hnum/9460834

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Review

Two concertos from the final quarter of the last century by Turkish composer Saygun as recorded by CPO – a label that has already done his music proud. 

His oratorio Yunus Emre op. 26 was conducted by Stokowski at the United Nations in 1958. A grant allowed him to study at the Schola Cantorum in Paris from 1928. He formed part of the Turkish Five including Cemal Esit Rey, Ulvi Cemal Erkin, Necil Kazim Akses and Ferid Alnar.  Saygun’s catalogue is extensive with five each symphonies and concertos and an opera on the Gilgamesh legend. 

The Cello Concerto is his penultimate work and was premiered by David Geringas in Istanbul in 1993. The Viola Concerto was given its first performance by a violist well known at one time to UK radio audiences, Rusen Gunes, whose participation in broadcasts of two massive chamber works by Franz Schmidt remains in the memory more than three decades later. The latter concerto was first issued in 1989 by Koch-Schwann and has since disappeared from sight. 

Both concertos are works of soulful substance and intensely varied colour. Those in the Cello Concerto are in sable and purple but in textures that are delicate. The material is passionate with a richly drenched  Szymanowskian mien and a strong connection into rhapsodic tonality. It is good to hear Tim Hugh as soloist after his triumphant Naxos Finzi concerto. 

The Viola Concerto has a warmth that is redolent of Walton mixed with Szymanowski (I, 8.02). The mood is one of snarling threat combined with ominous intimations of a hunt - con malizia (Walton). In the finale the glistening fantasies of the Cello Concerto are prefigured. There is outstanding playing again from Mirjam Tschopp who also recorded the Violin Concerto for CPO.

 

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

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Ahmet Adnan Saygun (7 September 1907 – 6 January 1991) was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music. One of a group of composers known as the Turkish Five who pioneered western classical music in Turkey, his works show a mastery of Western musical practice, while also incorporating traditional Turkish folk songs and culture. His extensive output includes five symphonies, five operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, viola and cello, and a wide range of chamber and choral works. Saygun was known not only as a composer but also as a scholar, an ethnomusicologist, and a teacher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Adnan_Saygun

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Tim Hugh is the Principal Cello of the London Symphony Orchestra. He studied at Yale with Aldo Parisot, and later with William Pleeth and Jacqueline du Pré. Following his success at the Tchaikovsky Competition, Hugh enjoys an international career as a soloist. With the LSO, he has performed Strauss' Don Quixote, and concertos by Elgar, Shostakovich, Haydn, Dvořák, Messiaen and Walton. He has also performed the Elgar, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Tabakov and Saygun concertos across the world. Hugh has given recitals in London, New York, Portugal, Beirut, and has recorded much of the piano trio repertoire with the Solomon Trio.

https://musicacademy.org/iox-profiles/tim-hugh/

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Mirjam Tschopp (born 1976 in Zurich) is a Swiss violinist and violist. She studied violin with Aïda Stucki, Franco Gulli and Thomas Brandis, and viola with Christoph Schiller. Since her debut at thirteen, Tschopp has enjoyed a career as violinist and violist, with both instruments featuring equally in her activities. Her extensive concert tours take her to some of the most prestigious venues in Germany, Austria, China, Taiwan and Korea. In 2018 she was appointed professor of both violin and viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She also teaches masterclasses and serves as a jury member of several competitions.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirjam_Tschopp

https://www.mirjamtschopp.com/en

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