Carolin Widmann Ecm

The solo violin recital is something of a black belt for violinists, as the fact of the violin playing alone tends to overwhelm in pieces that were not necessarily intended to be played together. Violinist Carolin Widmann does well here, and it's all the more impressive that there are few extended techniques of any kind, just a bit of pizzicato in one of the Three Miniatures for solo violin of George Benjamin. One thing that has attracted buyers to this commercially successful release is the presence of unusual pieces, not only the Benjamin but also the Fantaisie concertante of George Enescu.

Recordings of Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, are abundant, and even the pairing with the rarer Robert Schumann Violin Concerto, WoO 23, of 1853 are not as infrequent as they used to be. The thorny Schumann concerto has undergone a reevaluation upward, and plenty of players now concur with the judgment of Yehudi Menuhin: "This concerto is the historically missing link of the violin literature; it is the bridge between the Beethoven and the Brahms concertos, though leaning more towards Brahms." Violinist Carolin Widmann who (like the ECM label on which the album appears) has focused mostly on contemporary music, takes up the challenge of providing something new here, and she meets it. The central fact of the recording is that Widmann conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe from the violin. Others have done this before, but few have pursued the implications of the technique as far as Widmann has: the performances are unusually light and transparent, and they are perhaps thus in accord with the sounds an orchestra of the middle 19th century might have produced. Sample the unusually lively, sprightly reading of the Mendelssohn concerto's finale.

If you thought violinist Gidon Kremer and pianist Martha Argerich's 1986 DG recording of Schumann's two published violin sonatas was the last word in overwhelming passion in the German Romantic composer's late chamber music, try this 2008 ECM disc of the two published sonatas plus the unpublished sonata by violinist Carolin Widmann and pianist Dénes Várjon.

Phantasy of Spring from violinist Carolin Widmann and pianist Simon Lepper perfectly captures the spirit of ECM. An uncompromising programme of Morton Feldman, Bernd Alois Zimmerman, Arnold Schonberg and Iannis Xenakis gets excellent notes by the composer Raiiner Peters and sleeve artwork which is flagrantly out of focus even by ECM's standards. Phantasy of Spring alone will give more musical nourishment than the entire autumn release schedules of some of the larger labels.

While she made her much-lauded ECM debut with a thought-provoking account of Schumann’s violin sonatas last year, German violinist Carolin Widmann’s reputation as a pioneering interpreter of contemporary music is spreading continiously. “The new record brings me back to my roots”, says Widmann. Teaming up with Simon Lepper, one of Britain’s foremost lied accompanists and a particularly fine chamber musician, she now presents a most varied spectrum of 20th century duo literature. “For more than a year we worked on the repertoire selection.

Vertical and layered in form, “Strata” is austere and powerful music with a clearly Northern sensibility. The textures swirl and surge restlessly, building tension with harsh, emphatic brass chords set against high winds. There is an instense staccato outburst halfway through – with malign, mach-like drumming passages – evincing the composer’s rock influenes. Near the end, Tüür uses a pastoral motif from an Estonian (“Setu”) folksong, as the music slows down and coalesces in a shimmering coda and a sense of infinity in its long slow fade to silence. Performances by the Nordic Symphony Orchestra under Anu Tali are bracing, powerful, and very well recorded.