Violinist Chin Kim and pianist David Oei presented one of the season's more intriguing programs at yesterday evening's faculty recital at Mannes. Both performers were extremely accomplished musicians and Mr. Kim especially impressed by playing the full program, including the premiere of a new work, entirely from memory.
The recital began with Violin Sonata, Op. 27, No. 4 by famed Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Not only was each of the six sonatas in his Op. 27 dedicated to a different well known violinist but was also written in the style of that musician. The No. 4 was dedicated to Fritz Kreisler and is reminiscent of the recordings I have heard by that master. Ysaÿe himself was one of the most esteemed violinists of his era as witnessed by the fact that both Franck's Violin Sonata in A and Chausson's Poème were composed for him. In addition, he was the founder of the Ysaÿe Quartet which premiered Debussy's String Quartet in 1893.
The next piece was the Violin Sonata in F minor, Op. 80 by Sergei Prokofiev, one of the most darkly fascinating to be found in the entire repertoire for violin. The music has an almost sinister quality to it. The details provided in the Wikipedia article are striking:
"Prokofiev had described the slithering violin scales at the end of the 1st and 4th movements as 'wind passing through a graveyard'.
The work was premiered by David Oistrakh and Lev Oborin, under the personal coaching of the composer. During rehearsals, Oborin played a certain passage, marked forte, too gently for Prokofiev's liking, who insisted it should be more aggressive. Oborin replied that he was afraid of drowning out the violin, but Prokofiev said "It should sound in such a way that people should jump in their seat, and people will say 'Is he out of his mind?'"
No wonder this was the piece played at the composer's own funeral.
Following intermission came the world premiere of a new work, Life Strings for violin solo by Noam Sivan. The composer himself appeared onstage to explain that each of the poetically titled first four movements of this five-movement piece would be played entirely on one string descending from the highest to lowest with the final movement played on the full range of strings. It was an interesting experiment and I enjoyed listening to it.
The recital closed with performances of Chausson's Poème, mentioned above, and a transcription by Jascha Heifetz of Debussy's Beau Soir.
No comments:
Post a Comment