Information
Composer: Claude Debussy; Edward Elgar; Ottorino Respighi; Jean Sibelius
- Debussy - Violin Sonata in G minor, L. 140
- Elgar - Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82
- Respighi - Violin Sonata in B minor, P. 110
- Sibelius - Berceuse, Op. 79 No. 6
James Ehnes, violin
Andrew Armstrong, piano
Date: 2016
Label: Onyx
-----------------------------------------------------------
Is James Ehnes capable of making a sound that isn’t beautiful? If you’ve been following his career you’ll already have your own answer to that. If you haven’t, try from about 5'25" into tr 9: a passage of repose in Respighi’s mountainous passacaglia, played by Ehnes with such liquid sweetness and unforced expression that you might find yourself listening to it over and over again. Or take the beginning of the finale of Elgar’s Violin Sonata to hear how subtly Ehnes shades and shapes a line – and how pianist Andrew Armstrong makes it glow.
Those are merely examples: this programme of First World War-era violin sonatas is about much more than just ravishing sounds. Ehnes and Armstrong are intensely communicative duo partners and both can draw on a limitless palette of colours. They’ve chosen to bring out the darker facets of these three troubled works, charging the Debussy with a nervous energy that doesn’t prevent either player from responding to its Harlequin-like mood-shifts.
Their Elgar breaks open the romantic surface; and finds an unexpected kinship with Debussy in the interrupted serenade of the Romance – the interplay between the two players here is fantastical and profoundly tender. But they can shape long paragraphs too: listen to how the first movement of the Respighi ebbs to a close (from about 7'00" onwards). The Sibelius encore is both exquisite and perfectly appropriate.
If I’ve any reservation at all about this disc, it’s that these two superb artists feel at all times in complete control of the music: you occasionally miss the sense of abandon that you get from Kyung Wha Chung (or, in the Elgar, Lydia Mordkovitch). But you never doubt that everything that Ehnes and Armstrong have to say – and they ask more questions than they answer – comes from deep within the music. These are performances to return to.
-- Richard Bratby, Gramophone
-----------------------------------------------------------
Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer who was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His orchestral works include Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894), Nocturnes (1897–1899), Images (1905–1912), and La mer (1903–1905). His piano works include sets of 24 Préludes and 12 Études. Throughout his career Debussy also wrote mélodies based on a wide variety of poetry, including his own. His works have strongly influenced a wide range of composers including Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen, George Benjamin, and the jazz musician Bill Evans.
***
Edward Elgar (2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed choral works, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. Elgar has been described as the first composer to take the gramophone seriously. Between 1914 and 1925, he conducted a series of acoustic recordings of his own works.
***
Ottorino Respighi (9 July 1879 – 18 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. He studied at the Liceo Musicale di Bologna, and also studied briefly with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral suites, choral songs, chamber music, and transcriptions of Italian compositions of the 16th–18th centuries, but his best known and most performed works are his three orchestral tone poems which brought him international fame: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928).
***
James Ehnes (born January 27, 1976) is a Canadian violinist and violist. A protégé of Francis Chaplin, he studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and at The Juilliard School. As a soloist, Ehnes has performed with all of the major orchestras in North America, as well as many major orchestras in Europe. He performs on the 1715 "ex-Marsick" Stradivarius. His commercial recordings have won many awards and prizes, including 11 Junos, two Grammies, and two Gramophone Classical Music Awards. He is also is artistic director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society and leader of the Ehnes Quartet.
-----------------------------------------------------------
FLAC, tracks
Links in comment
Enjoy!
Choose one link, copy and paste it to your browser's address bar, wait a few seconds (you may need to click 'Continue' first), then click 'Free Access with Ads' / 'Get link'. Complete the steps / captchas if require.
ReplyDeleteGuide for Linkvertise: 'Free Access with Ads' --> 'Get [Album name]' --> 'I'm interested' --> 'Explore Website / Learn more' --> close the newly open tab/window, then wait for a few seconds --> 'Get [Album name]'
https://filemedia.net/610926/aKtUU7117774753
or
https://uii.io/imLgR6d4hl
or
https://exe.io/Tsz9zX