Fazil Say - Complete Violin Works (Friedemann Eichhorn)

Information

Composer: Fazil Say

• Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 82 "Mount Ida"
• Cleopatra, Op. 34
• Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 7
• Violin Concerto, Op. 25 "1001 Nights in the Harem"

Friedemann Eichhorn, violin

Fazil Say, piano

Deutsche Radio Philharmonie

Christoph Eschenbach, conductor

Date: 2020

Label: Naxos

https://www.naxos.com/CatalogueDetail/?id=8.574085

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Review

Anatolian-born Fazil Say is most familiar as a pianist who combines technical prowess with an exuberantly showy performing style. His music is correspondingly extrovert, blending western Romanticism and eastern-inspired rhythms and harmonies with a jazzy tunefulness in heart-on-sleeve lyrical appeal.

As this complete album of violin works attests, the results comprise on the one hand an exciting interweaving of cultures but, on the other, a raid on the store cupboard of musical clichés. Both extremes co-exist in these four works, which are in effect a throwback to and inverting of 19th-century orientalism. There’s no doubting the brilliance and commitment of the performers – who include Say himself in the two violin sonatas, respectively dated 1997 and 2019. The soloist throughout is Friedemann Eichhorn, whose violin alternately dances, skitters, pleads and beguiles with astonishing ease.

While youthful enthusiasm marks the earlier piece, it’s rage and loss that elevates above all others in the more recent work, subtitled ‘Mount Ida’ for the Turkish peak and written in protest at environmental destruction nearby. Cast in three movements, most affecting is the middle ‘Wounded Bird’ in which delicate whorls of sound stand in stark contrast to angry, Bartókian percussiveness in the outer two.

The virtuosic competition piece Cleopatra (2010) and the Violin Concerto 1001 Nights in the Harem (2007) offer depictions of women that are vivid but have uncomfortable undertones post-MeToo. For the latter, Eichhorn is ably joined by the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie and conductor Christoph Eschenbach.

-- Steph Power, BBC Music Magazine

More reviews:

https://artmusiclounge.wordpress.com/2020/07/18/fazil-says-violin-works/
https://www.thestrad.com/reviews/friedemann-eichhorn-say/11248.article

https://www.pizzicato.lu/marchenhaft-aber-auch-mit-dem-finger-zeigend-die-violinwerke-von-fazil-say/

https://www.naxos.com/Review/Detail/?catalogueid=8.574085&languageid=EN

https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Violin-Works-Friedemann-Eichhorn/dp/B08BF1W3BM

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Fazıl Say (born 14 January 1970 in Ankara) is a Turkish pianist and composer. He began studying piano at age 3 and wrote his first piece – a piano sonata – at the age of 14. Say attracted international attention with the piano piece Black Earth (1997), and since then has increasingly turned to the large orchestral forms. In 2007 he aroused international interest with his Violin Concerto 1001 Nights in the Harem, and after that scored further great successes with his symphonies. On 15 April 2013, Say was sentenced to 10 months in jail for his crime of "insulting religious values". The conviction was reversed on 26 October 2015.

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

https://fazilsay.com/

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Friedemann Eichhorn (born 1971 in Münster) is a German classical violinist. He studied at the Mannheim University of Music, the International Menuhin Music Academy in Gstaad, the Juilliard School in New York, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. He has performed with many orchestras, with well known conductors and musicians. Eichhorn has recorded CDs of works by Hermann, Rode, Servais and others, for the Hänssler Classic, Claves, and Naxos labels. He teaches violin at the Liszt School of Music in Weimar and is the Artistic Director of the Kronberg Academy in Kronberg.

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

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