Emotional Violin

A renaissance artist for our times, Lera Auerbach is internationally renowned as a composer whose exquisitely crafted, emotional, and boldly imaginative music reaches a global audiences. Her 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano is a cycle of compact but ‘meaningful and complete’ works that follows the key scheme of Chopin’s 24 Préludes, while exploring stark contrasts that range from primordial darkness to naïve innocence. Using a highly original tonal language with clear references to classical traditions, this pioneering work fully represents Auerbach’s ability to put music at the service of a broader expression of human need and fallibility.

This is the second volume in a series devoted to the works for strings by Béla Bartók, with James Ehnes the featured soloist. Ehnes had earlier recorded the Violin and Viola Concertos (CHAN 10690), which was made Disc of the Month in Gramophone magazine. On this new recording, he turns to the Violin Sonatas and Rhapsodies, complemented by the earliest surviving work by Bartók for violin and piano, an Andante. He is accompanied by the pianist Andrew Armstrong.

Grumiaux' version remains to this day one of the best available. He and Markevitch conducting the Amsterdam Concertgebouw have a total mastery of the idiom, and the Concerto's sections unfold naturally and organically: it doesn't sound like "modern" music, but as a language entirely congenial to the performers. Tempos are middle-of-the road, close to the metronome marks, and nothing more is required to bring out the composition's searing lyricism. Grumiaux has a luminous tone, the perfect mix of radiant lyricism and despaired vehemence. Markevitch, the Concertgebouw Orchestra (glorious brass!) and the sonic engineers bring out a wealth of orchestral details from Berg's subtle and delicately intertwined textures, maybe not as much as the best modern versions