Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla / City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra THE BRITISH PROJECT

 

THE BRITISH PROJECT

 

Jodie Devos / Nicolas Krüger AND LOVE SAID...

 

AND LOVE SAID...

 

Tasmin Little THE BEST OF TASMIN

THE BEST OF TASMIN

Carolyn Sampson / Joseph Middleton THE CONTRAST

                                                      ENGLISH POETRY IN SONG

Fabiola Kim / Münchner Symphoniker / Kevin John Edusei 1939

The 1930s proved to be a bumper decade for violin concertos, and 1939 was the most productive year of all, with these three works seeing fruition (the Walton and Hartmann were both later revised), as well as concertos by Britten, Hindemith and Gál – any of which, incidentally, would have fitted on the rather skimpily filled second disc. Korean–American violinist Fabiola Kim proves an ideal exponent of all three concertos. There’s real warmth to her playing in the Walton, with some perceptive interplay between her and Kevin John Edusei’s Munich musicians. A particular strength is the variety of tone colours she displays, especially in the mercurial closing section of the central ‘alla napolitana’ Scherzo.

Hartmann’s Concerto funèbre is the only work of the three here that demonstrably reflects the wider state of the world in that fateful year, and Kim’s first entry is filled with fragile foreboding, matched with sombre retorts from the richly hued Munich strings. The main Allegro di molto has as much anger as vigour, and dissolves into the closing funeral march with a melancholy inevitability as Kim’s keening lines peal away into an uncertain future.

Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto was written as he faced the dilemma of whether to stay in Hungary or flee, and the result is one of the most overtly Magyar of his late works. Kim gives a heartfelt performance that taps its emotions as much as it exploits its unashamed playfulness, and again there’s vigorous, characterful orchestral support. This, then, is a highly satisfying concerto collection, all in excellently recorded sound.

Isabelle van Keulen / NDR Radiophilharmonie SERGEI PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1 WILLIAM WALTON Viola Concerto RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS The Lark Ascending

Here is a disc whose contents seem odd as it couples the violin concerto of a (still) Russian composer to the viola concerto of an English one. Instead, the coupling is very clever since Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, whose premiere was in 1923 (while the composer was still living in France, a few years before his return to Soviet Union) served as a much-admired model to Walton’s Viola Concerto, whose first performance was played by Paul Hindemith in 1929. The similarities between the two works go beyond the three-movements structure slow-quick-slow and concern themes, accompaniments and the rondo form of the virtuoso central Scherzo.

The smart idea of such unusual coupling came to one of the few great living violinists who can really play the viola with equal skill: Isabelle van Keulen. This glorious disc is crowned by the orchestrated version of Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece The Lark Ascending.
One of German radio best orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, is conducted by Andrew Manze (Prokofiev), Keri-Lynn Wilson (Walton) and Andrew Litton (Vaughan Williams).

Helen Callus / New Zealand Symphony Orchestra / Marc Taddei BRITISH MUSIC FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA

The British-American violist Helen Callus has an intensely lyrical tone that instantly grabs your attention in the excerpts from the 1934 Suite for viola and orchestra of Vaughan Williams, a pastoral work in the truest sense. One of the few questionable moves here is that the work is presented in excerpted form, although there isn't room for the whole thing on a single CD, and it's hard to make a case for omitting any of the other works. The mood deepens and darkens in Herbert Howells' Elegy for viola, string quartet, and string orchestra, Op. 15, written in memory of a young musician killed in action in World War I. Callus applies the same lyrical approach to the Walton Viola Concerto in A minor, which comes in zippier renderings, but the consistent passion here is impressive. And it effectively sets up the less common Viola Concerto in C minor, Op. 25, of York Bowen, composed in 1907. This is a neglected gem of the viola repertory, a broad, Brahmsian work with splendid melodies. Sample the slow movement of Andante cantabile or the finale with a new cadenza by Callus herself. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Marc Taddei provide idiomatic support in their home base of Wellington, and in all, if the idea of a program of British viola music doesn't fill you with excitement, listen and reconsider. (James Manheim)

David Aaron Carpenter / London Philharmonic Orchestra MOTHERLAND

For his second Warner Classics album, David Aaron Carpenter - "a star violist" in the words of the Los Angeles Times - brings together concertos by Dvořák, Bartók, Walton and a dance cycle by contemporary composer Alexey Shor. Carpenter identifies a connecting theme of "a longing for the homeland … a reverence for native musical folk tunes and language." He is accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under three distinguished conductors: Kazushi Ono, Vladimir Jurowski and David Parry.