Igor Levit ENCOUNTER

ENCOUNTER

Sayaka Shoji BACH & REGER Works for Violin Solo

The winner of the 1999 Paganini Competition at the age of 16, Sayaka Shoji isn’t merely a superb technician, she’s a deeply engaging performer who punches above her weight. The richly resonant, spirited sound that the diminutive young violinist produces with her 1729 “Recamier” Stradivarius is impressive and so, too, is the poetic delicacy of her phrasing.

Clearly she relishes the solo violin repertoire but she’s hardly the first to pair works for solo violin by Bach and Reger. Jennifer Koh did so most recently in 2005 (Cedille). Nor has Shoji recorded Reger’s Op 117 in its entirety, as has Renate Eggebrecht (Troubadisc). She has chosen three pairs of works, to draw attention to the influence of Bach on Reger, of which the most telling must be the magnificent Chaconnes: where Reger provides a gymnastic display, Bach creates music of the highest order. Like so many modern players, Shoji makes little attempt to differentiate them stylistically despite the two centuries that separate them.

“Bach and Reger”: that’s the order in which one would incline to think of them. Gilles Cantagrel, who wrote the booklet-notes for this disc, does too. Why, then, does Mirare place each of the pairs in the reverse order? Are we meant to reflect on the Reger we’ve heard as we listen to the Bach that follows? Reger, for all his contrapuntal skill and imaginative harmony, is never going to win hearts and minds; and anyway, Bach makes you forget everything else you’ve ever heard so the battle is lost almost immediately! It might have been better to devote one disc to Bach and one to Reger.

Nevertheless, Shoji emerges as a formidable musician armed with a superb instrument, able to draw on huge reserves of stamina and the unflinching equal of anything thrown at her. The world is her oyster. (Julie Anne Sadie / Gramophone)

Marlis Petersen / Camillo Radicke DIMENSIONEN - ANDERSWELT

The Otherworld... The human being rooted in the world that sees only what the eye can see… Does he at once dare a glance to the side where nature, spirits and elemental beings reside? Not many of us have kept the ability to view them and get in contact. This release offers you the ‘Otherworldly’ eye from the early Romantic period up to the classical modernism, including the Northern countries (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland), and now hope you allow yourself to be "lost to the world"… Plunge into the magical world of twilight - populated with elemental spirits, elves, waterlilies, nymphs and merman. The creatures of the unseen are the protagonists of this classical song album and tempt the listener into their legendary realms. Carl Loewe, Johannes Brahms, Max Reger, Nikolai Medtner, Hugo Wolf, Alexander Zemlinsky, Franz Schreker, Hans Sommer and many more engaged themselves in this mystic world and set it in music in a very sensual and playful way!

Matt Haimovitz / Philippe Cassard PORTES OUVERTES

Matt Haimovitz’s latest recital of twentieth-century cello compositions sustains the thesis of its predecessors (12/95 and 5/97) that extreme contrast, not merely variety, has been the spice of twentieth-century musical life. To juxtapose two works from 1914, Reger’s Third Suite and Webern’s Three Little Pieces, the former expansive and retrospective, the latter aphoristic and reaching nervously into an unknowable future, makes the point with admirable immediacy.

The rest of the music here is more mainstream, the Britten Sonata showing that there was as much mileage left in the old classical genres in 1960 as Debussy had found in his Sonata more than 40 years before. With these works, of course, Haimowitz is competing against a long series of distinguished predecessors on disc, and his partnership with Cassard (how often have they played these works in concert, I wonder?) can’t match the empathy of Moray Welsh and John Lenehan in the Britten, or – it goes without saying – of Rostropovich and Britten himself in both sonatas.

The recording as such is at its best in the unaccompanied works, its closeness and resonance reinforcing the powerful musical profile of Dutilleux’s elegant yet forceful Strophes, and helping to ensure that Reger does not seriously outstay his welcome. In Webern, Debussy and Britten the piano sound has an abrasive aspect to it, as if the object were to underline the incompatibility of two such different instruments. But the playing is technically first-rate, and should certainly open doors (why the French title?) to anyone exploring this repertory for the first time.' (Arnold Whittall / Gramophone)

Benjamin Appl / James Baillieu HEIMAT

Anyone who enjoyed Benjamin Appl’s previous disc, a Schubert recital (Wigmore Hall Live, 7/16), will recognise the same qualities on this new album, the first fruit of a newly forged relationship with Sony Classical. The voice has a burnished, oaky beauty as well as considerable sweetness (well captured in Sony’s natural engineering), while the interpretations are suffused with a gentle intelligence, an instinct for unforced but direct communication and what feels like a real love for the repertoire. The latter characteristic is even more in evidence in this project, one which has a disarming personal element: a carefully assembled programme that explores not just the abstract concept of ‘Heimat’ but also the young baritone’s relationship with his two homelands, original and adopted.

It’s a delightful selection, split up further into evocative subheadings, which mixes songs familiar and less well known, the expected with the unexpected. Schubert, Wolf and Brahms dominate the larger, German part of the programme, beautifully performed. But we also have the disarming, twinkling simplicity of Reger’s ‘Des Kindes Gebet’, as well as Adolf Strauss’s suave ‘Ich weiss bestimmt’, presented with a gentle pathos and sophistication that quietly underlines the tragedy of its having been composed in Terezín – here, as throughout, the piano-playing of James Baillieu is superb.

Appl’s move to the UK is announced in a confused whirl with Poulenc’s Hyde Park and then a half a dozen songs in English, with a slightly more folksy tone. You’ll have to go a long way to hear more enchanting accounts of Britten’s ‘Greensleeves’, Ireland’s ‘If there were dreams to sell’ or Bishop’s ‘Home, sweet home’. Appl’s English, unsurprisingly, cannot be faulted. The two Grieg songs that make up the epilogue are outstanding, too. But the final moments of an otherwise near-ideal account of ‘Ein Traum’ highlight one reservation. The voice is very beautiful across a broad range but it remains a great deal happier up to forte than above it, where it loses flexibility and can develop a slightly fuzzy, even woofy quality.

It’s an issue that will hopefully be ironed out as Appl develops. As it is, though, there is more than enough quality in his singing, and pleasure to be had from his musicianship and interpretative instincts, for this charming and often moving disc to be confidently recommended. (Gramophone)

Irene Veneziano JEUX D'EAU

Irene Veneziano plays regularly all over the world.

In Beijing she was appointed an honorary member of Beijing Bravoce Music Club and in Peru she received the honorific title “Visitante distinguida”.
In 2107 le she was awarded the National Prize for culture “Toyp 2017”and she was also chosen for the exhibition “Donne. Mujeres italianas que han cambiado la historia” in Logroño (Rioja, Spain).
In January 2011 she had her debut at the Alla Scala Theatre in Milan, having great success from public and critics.

She was semifinalist in the prestigious 16th “International Piano Competition F. Chopin” in Warsaw 2010 and finalist at the “International German Piano Award” in Frankfurt 2015. She was awarded in more than 30 national and international piano competitions, including Prix Jean Clostre in Genève, 2nd Prize in B&B in New York, Premio “Casella” in Premio Venezia competition, First Prize and Grand Prix at Tim Competition in Paris 2012.

She graduated from the Istituto Musicale Pareggiato G. Puccini in Gallarate in 2005 with top marks and special mention.
In 2008 she passed the Level II Academic Diploma for piano at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan with top marks and special mention. In the same year, she obtained the specialist piano Diploma held by M° S. Perticaroli at the S. Cecilia Academy in Rome with top marks; she was also awarded the “G. Sinopoli” Scholarship for the best degree student from the Academy, receiving the award from G. Napolitano, the President of the Italian Republic. She also obtained the Diploma of Chamber music with special mention at the International Piano Academy in Imola. In 2009 she passed the diploma of “Didattica della musica” at the G. Verdi Conservatory in Milan.

András Schiff / Peter Serkin MOZART - REGER - BUSONI Music for Two pianos

In his liner notes, Klaus Schweizer describes a unique meeting of minds when pianists András Schiff and Peter Serkin appeared on stage together for a November 1997 concert held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Rather than join forces, these two “protagonists” rubbed those forces together to see what kind of electricity could be produced, so that “the audience had the pleasure of enjoying a contest of temperaments…and may have come away with the impression that such ‘contrapuntal’ music-making can be more stimulating than the harmony of two kindred souls.” The spontaneity of said performance and all its glorious vices have made their way into this subsequent studio recording, for which we are treated to the same sounds that graced the eyes and ears of all who were there for this rare event. As Schweizer so keenly sees it, this is a program of fugal magnificence, each work drawing from Bach’s highest art its own vivid line of continuity. (ECM Reviews)

Alban Gerhardt / Markus Becker REGER Cello Sonatas

Alban Gerhardt’s profound musicality and charisma have made him one of the most sought-after cellists of his generation. His ebullient personality is present in all his performances; he is nevertheless passionately committed to the intentions of the composer, and his recordings are always the product of an intense personal journey into every aspect of the music. Gerhardt’s espousal of Reger’s cello sonatas and suites is thus greatly welcomed. Pianist Markus Becker has released twelve discs of Reger’s keyboard music and is an ideal interpreter.

Reger’s cello sonatas and suites demonstrate every facet of this complex composer and individual. The composer’s passionate commitment to German Romanticism and his neo-Classical inspirations are both here: the great influence by Brahms and then the conscious shrugging-off of that mantle in the face of a complex and progressive stylistic advance. The sonatas span the duration of his career and culminate in the late unaccompanied suites, whose ambition to emulate J S Bach is both patent and largely fulfilled. The duo sonatas demand—and receive in this recording—not only a cellist of unusual powers of empathy and bravura, but also a first-rate pianist. This is fascinating and difficult repertoire, wonderfully performed and recorded.

'Exceptionally rewarding … it would be difficult to find more persuasive advocates than cellist Alban Gerhardt and pianist Markus Becker, both of whom are steeped inside the idiom and know exactly how to present the music with cogency and a sure sense of direction. The Four Cello Sonatas provide a fascinating overview of Reger's musical development, moving from the Brahmsian warmth of the First to the highly expressionist and unsettling Fourth. With the aid of excellent sound, Gerhardt and Becker map out this musical journey with wonderful sensitivity … Hyperion's decision to add to this already challenging progamme the Three Unaccompanied Suites of 1914 is fully vindictated by an outstanding performance which once again demonstrates Gerhardt's formidable control of musical line and breathtaking virtuosity' (BBC Music Magazine)