Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer

Gidon Kremer and Mario Brunello pay tribute to Beethoven by presenting two of his most famous quartets in a version for string orchestra played by Kremerata Baltica. The ensembles founder Gidon Kremer directs op.131 from the violin, while Mario Brunello conducts op. 135 and adds two contemporary pieces, one by Leo Ferre, the revolutionary, anarchic, inspired singer-songwriter and great lover of Beethoven: Muss es sein? Es muss sein! We perform this hymn to free music in a version arranged by Valter Sivilotti for cello, strings and percussion with Ferres original voice Note sconte means hidden notes in Venetian dialect.

Recorded in 2001 (Mahler) and 2004 (Shostakovich), this 2007 ECM release provides a wonderful insight into Gidon Kremer's perspective on two composers who are clearly close to his heart. The performances are both fascinating, and the Kremerata Baltica give their not-inconsiderable all in both works.

Written in 1900, Enescu’s Octet for Strings combines the chromatic richness prevalent in Vienna at the time with a refined sense of formal structure. After World War I, he was increasingly influenced by the folk music of his native Romania, the effect of which is subtly echoed in the Quintet for Piano and Strings of 1940, heard here in its first recording. In the hands of Kremer and his ensemble, both works are revealed to be masterful and distinctive pieces that deserve to be more widely known.

Gidon Kremer … his tone colour changing in chameleon fashion to match mood and style. He is wispy and wiry in the spare, fugal opening, but as the music blossoms into Straussian warmth, he plays with a creamy, ripe sweetness that could grace an old Hollywood weepy. Yet there is always clarity in the playing, a feeling for the contours of the music and where they are leading. –Tim Homfray, The Strad, about Kremer s Bartók Violin Concerto

The New Seasons referred to in the title here are the so-called American Four Seasons, the Violin Concerto No. 2 of Philip Glass, which has even less of a connection to Vivaldi's model than do Astor Piazzolla's Buenos Aires Four Seasons and other works that take Vivaldi as a point of reference. The work is in eight sections, but which ones are supposed to represent which season is left up to the listener. It's really a typical but unusually effective example of late-period Glass, with the composer's usual textures intact but lots of harmonic motion. Part of the interest here lies in hearing Latvian violinist and conductor Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica, long champions of minimalism's Baltic branch, tackle a work by one of the leaders of Western minimalism. The American Four Seasons get a treatment that's a bit rougher than usual, but then Kremer turns around (after a Pärt girls' choir interlude) and delivers pristinely smooth, glassy textures in Giya Kancheli's Ex contrario. The program closes with a fascinating little melody by Japanese rock musician and film composer Shigeru Umebayashi, a daring and effective choice.

Nonesuch Records releases The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould, by violinist Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra, on September 25, 2012, which would have been Gould’s 80th birthday. The album comprises 11 pieces and arrangements by contemporary composers that quote from or are inspired by works, mostly by Bach, that Gould famously recorded during his career; two Arnold Schoenberg pieces also are drawn upon in one piece.