Augustin Anievas

Violinist Augustin Hadelich embarks on an American Road Trip, travelling the musical highways and byways of his adoptive homeland in the company of pianist Orion Weiss. The duo perform works by a melting pot of American composers, writing in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and drawing on a diversity of idioms, influences and inspirations … from European Romanticism to revivalist hymns; from blues and jazz to bluegrass; from the banjo and ukelele to Jimi Hendrix’s guitar, and from a little Mexican star to exquisite Japanese carvings. Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ives and John Adams take their place beside Amy Beach, Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, Eddie South, Howdy Forrester, Manuel M. Ponce and – flying the flag for today’s composers along with Adams – Daniel Bernard Roumain and Stephen Hartke.

Violinist Augustin Hadelich, one of the fastest-rising stars of his generation, releases his first major concerto recording, pairing the Violin Concertos of Jean Sibelius and Thomas Adès, only the second recording of British composer’s work. He is superbly supported by Hannu Lintu conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Cesar Franck's passionate and sunny Violin Sonata has long been regarded as one of the greatest in the repertoire, and is the work of a composer at the height of his powers. Richard Strauss's Violin Sonata, composed a year after Franck's in 1887, is the work of a young composer on the cusp of discovering his mature voice; lyrical and sumptuous, it has all the hallmarks of his later style. Performed here by distinguished violinist and conductor Augustin Dumay and French-Canadian pianist Louis Lortie, this recording marks the duo's recording debut. In addition to the sonatas, this album includes two Franck rarities - Melancolie and the Prelude, Fugue and Variation Op.18 for organ, heard here in an arrangement by Dumay and Lortie. The recording concludes with the wonderful Heifetz arrangement of Strauss's song Auf stillem Waldespfad.

Their first recording revealed a little-known work from the beginning of 18th century England, Richard Jones' Chamber Airs (1680-1744). For this second Flora recording, The Beggar's Ensemble founded by violinist Augustin Lusson and harpsichordist Daria Zemele (two young iconoclasts of the French early music scene) immerse themselves in the world of Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764), one of the most flamboyant violin virtuosos in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.

'Mr Hadelich increasingly seems to be one of the outstanding violinists of his generation,' wrote the New York Times after Augustin Hadelich played Dvorák’s Violin Concerto under Czech-born Jakub Hrusa’s baton in 2017. Hadelich and Hrusa have now recorded the concerto with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks .