Volume 29 Issue 5 | April & May 2024

albums/a-lionel-tertis-celebration) Stirring performances of two major works by Tertis students bookend the recital, York Bowen’s Viola Sonata No.1 in C Minor Op.18 opening CD1 and Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata closing CD2. Sunset and Hier au Soir are Tertis originals, and there are arrangements by him of short pieces by Brahms, Schumann, Fauré and Mendelssohn, as well as by John Ireland and William Wolstenholme. Other composers represented are Frank Bridge, Eric Coates, Cecil Forsyth, Vaughan Williams, Bowen and Wolstenholme again, and W. H. “Billy” Reed of Elgar violin concerto fame, whose lovely Rhapsody opens CD2. Two Kreisler works close CD1: Ridout’s own arrangement of Liebeslied; and a stunning performance of Alan Arnold’s arrangement of the Praeludium and Allegro. That same tumultuous period is central to Upheaval, with cellist Janne Fredens and pianist Søren Rastogi presenting compositions by four female composers active around the First World War years (OUR Recordings 6.220683 ourrecordings.com). The Dutch pianist and composer Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952), whose career was disrupted by the Nazi occupation in the1940s and never recovered, is represented by her 1919 Cello Sonata in A Minor. The reputation of the prolific Croatian composer Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) continues to grow following the recent revival of her terrific Symphony in F-sharp Minor. Her 1913 Cello Sonata in E Minor Op.35 is a striking and substantial late-Romantic work, showing the clear influence of Brahms and Dvořák. Two pieces by the Boulanger sisters, Lili’s Nocturne again and Nadia’s Trois pièces from 1911 complete an excellent disc full of sensitive and finely judged playing. William T. Horton’s fantastic image The Path to the Moon was the inspiration for the new album from cellist Laura van der Heijden three unstoppable women who also composed #trailblazingwomen #violasonatas #queercomposers www.acisproductions.com and pianist Jâms Coleman, their CD Path to the Moon including music relating to the moon and the night, as well as works evoking mankind’s striving for new heights (Chandos CHAN 20274 chandos.net/ products/catalogue/CHAN%2020274). It’s an eclectic program anchored by three 20th-century sonatas: the 1957 Cello Sonata by the American George Walker; Britten’s Sonata Op.65 and Debussy’s 1915 Cello Sonata. Fittingly, given the singing nature of van der Heijden’s playing, virtually all of the transcriptions are of vocal music: Korngold’s Schönste Nacht; Lili Boulanger’s Reflets; Florence Price’s Night; Britten’s Sonetto XXX; Debussy’s Beau soir; Fauré’s Clair de lune; Takemitsu’s Will Tomorrow, I Wonder, Be Cloudy or Clear?; and Nina Simone’s take on Jonathan King’s Everyone’s Gone to the Moon. Debussy’s Clair de lune ends a lovely disc. The South Korean double-bassist Mikyung Sung is the remarkable soloist on The Colburn Sessions, a brilliant two-disc set where she is ably supported by pianist Jaemin Shin, the two having worked together in the Artist Diploma course at the Colburn School in Los Angeles in 2017 (Modus Vivendi Media MVM 2301 mikyungbass.bandcamp.com/album/ the-colburn-sessions). Bottesini’s Tarantella is a dazzling opening track, Sung displaying stunning facility and clarity. The same composer’s Capriccio di Bravura and the more lyrical Elegy No.1 are followed by a transcription of the Meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs. Hindemith’s Sonata for Double Bass and Piano and the impressive 1967 Sonata for Double Bass and Piano by Hungarian composer Vilmos Montag (1908-91) end disc 1. The second CD is even more impressive, with the Andante from Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata Op.19 sandwiched between two outstanding sonatas: Mendelssohn’s Cello Sonata No.2 Op.58 with an astonishing final movement that takes your breath away, and Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major in the composer-endorsed transcription for cello by Jules Delsart, Sung playing direct from the cello part – which she presumably also does with the Mendelssohn. Superb playing from both performers is beautifully captured in single continuous takes live to stereo. Complete performances of the Hindemith, Mendelssohn and Franck sonatas can be viewed on Sung’s website, mikyungbass.com. Wanchi Huang is the violinist on Imagining Worlds – Music for Solo Violin, a CD that features new music by composers described as compelling voices in contemporary American music (Navona Records NV6592 navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6592). The recital comprises Adolphus Hailstork’s rather bland Suite for Solo Violin, Judith Shatin’s somewhat oppressive For the Fallen – for Amplified Violin and Electronics, Meira Warshauer’s Jewish-influenced In Memoriam and Brach (Blessing), and Jeffrey Mumford’s an expanding distance of multiple voices, the five movements totaling only 11 minutes. John Corigliano’s Red Violin Caprices completes the disc. There’s interesting writing on display here, but only the Corigliano really leaps out and separates itself from the crowd; it certainly brings by far the best playing from Huang. The music of a Brazilian composer who lived from 1943 to 2010 is explored on José Antônio de Almeida Prado Works for Violin and Cello, a new addition to The Music of Brazil series featuring violinist Emmanuele Baldini and cellist Rafael Cesario 60 | April & May 2024 thewholenote.com

(Naxos 8.574459 naxos.com/Search/ KeywordSearchResults/?q=Almeida%20 Prado%20-%20Works%20for%20Violin%20 and%20Cello). Only two works – Le livre magique de Xangô from 1985 and Das Cirandas from 1999 – are duets. The 2004 Praeambulum for solo cello was commissioned as an intro to Bach’s Cello Suite No.3 in C Major BWV1009, while The Four Seasons for solo violin was written for a young performers’ national competition in 1984, each brief movement a study in various violin techniques. The lyrical and extremely brief – under two minutes – Capriccio für Constança und Ana Luiza from 1998 and the Solo Violin Sonata from 2000, dedicated to his daughter, one of Brazil’s leading violinists and the most substantial work on the CD, end a recital of solid performances but with few real musical high points. The Trio con Brio Copenhagen, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year performs piano trios by Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Franz Schubert on The Passenger, a CD that surveys two young composers whose compositions offer poignant reflections on life, mortality and ethereal beauty (Orchid Classics ORC100282 orchidclassics.com). Weinberg was a Polish Jew who fled Warsaw when the Nazis invaded. His Piano Trio Op.24 was written in Moscow in 1945 when he was 25; characterized by unrest and despair, it occupies much the same sound world as that of his friend Shostakovich. The finale features a waltz that foreshadows his opera The Passenger, where a waltz links the evil of a concentration camp to an uncertain future. Written in 1827, just a year before his early death, Schubert’s Piano Trio No.2 in E-flat Major Op.100 grew from Schubert’s encounter with the Swedish song Se solen sjunker, which describes the sinking sun and all hope being chased away by night’s shadows. The funeral march of the second movement, based on the song, is the emotional centre of the work. The Weinberg work is also heard on Piano Trios of Weinberg, Auerbach & Dvořák, a top-notch debut CD by Trio Zimbalist intended as “a heartfelt response to the enduring human struggle unfolding around the world” (Curtis Studio curtis.edu/ curtis-studio). The album is cast in the spirit of the What we're listening to this month: Dumka, a Ukrainian term meaning “thought.” In music, Dumky were sung by traveling minstrels, and often expressed the laments of oppressed people. It was this form that Dvořák used as the basis for his Piano Trio No.4 in E Minor Op.90, “Dumky”, an extensive sixmovement work that closes the disc. We have already noted the circumstances surrounding the composition of the Weinberg trio. Lera Auerbach’s quite brief but striking three-movement Piano Trio No.1 Op.28 with its impassioned middle Andante lamentoso movement and eerie and aggressive finale, was written following her defection from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Dvořák also fits in here: it is often overlooked that performances of his works were suppressed in the Czechoslovak Republic for a while after 1945. There are two Stravinsky Violin Concerto CDs this month, one featuring James Ehnes with the BBC Philharmonic under Sir Andrew Davis (Chandos CHSA5340 chandos.net/products/catalogue/ CHSA%205340) and the other with Frank Peter Zimmermann and the Bamberger Symphoniker under Jakub Hrůša (BIS-2657 prestomusic.com/classical/products/95571 – Igor-stravinsky-bartok-martin). Written for – and premiered by – Samuel Dushkin in 1932, the concerto is a four-movement work in Stravinsky’s neo-classical style. Ehnes is his usual flawless self in a supremely confident performance, as smooth as ever and with a clear, pure tone, especially in the two middle Arias. The rest of the Chandos Stravinsky disc is orchestral music in really fine performances: the Scherzo à la Russe, a showpiece written for the Paul Whiteman band on the composer’s arrival in California in the early 1940s; the Suites Nos.1 & 2, arranged from piano duets from the 1910s; and Apollo Musagète, a ballet in two parts for strings from 1927-28 that marked a complete rejection of his previous ballets and a move to pure form. The Zimmermann disc, on the other hand, is all violin and orchestra, linking composers who put down roots in the West without abandoning their Eastern European identities. Zimmermann’s Stravinsky concerto is another outstanding performance, albeit a fair bit faster than Ehnes: the Zimmermann timings for the four movements, which only range from four to six minutes in length, are a significant 20 to 30 seconds shorter than those of Ehnes. There’s no real sense of a faster or spikier approach here though, with Ehnes and Davis possibly just more relaxed in tempo. Dushkin also premiered Bartók’s Rhapsodies thewholenote.com/listening The Colburn Sessions Mikyung Sung Gorgeously expressive, richly luminous performances of violin, cello, and double bass favorites in a dazzling, virtuosic 2CD album from Mikyung Sung. Fire - Flowers Timothy Shantz Fire-Flowers brings solace and comfort to listeners with these musical works on death and renewal by Johannes Brahms and contemporary composer Zachary Wadsworth In the Crystalline Vault of Heaven Margot Rejskind In The Crystalline Vault of Heaven captivates their "sublimely beautiful" music that reflects the diversity and breadth of choral music written on the East Coast. Dall'Abaco and the Art of Variation Accademia de' Dissonanti, Elinor Frey This new CD explores the art of variation through world premiere recordings of two cello trios and three sonatas. thewholenote.com April & May 2024 | 61