Shk Kang

Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his 10 Violin Sonatas between 1797 and 1812. The Sonatas 1 to 9 were written between 1797 and 1803 before almost ten years passed until his opus 96. The composer premiered all his early piano works himself, which might be why he called them 'Sonatas for Pianoforte and Violin.' In the spirit of W. A. Mozart's redefinition of the genre, who elevated the violin from its previously only accompanying role, and in spite of today's common designation as 'violin sonatas,' both instrumental parts in Beethoven's sonatas are on an equal musical footing. In 2020 - the anniversary year surrounding Beethoven's 250th birthday - the Korean violinist Clara-Jumi Kang and her partner on the piano, Sunwook Kim, took on this special cycle of chamber music works.

The two Serenades ‘sung’ by the more rapturously Oistrakh-like Kang are sentimental and are recorded with rich immediacy. The Six Humoresques also arrive courtesy of Kang. These are magical bonbons - each weighted and balanced to perfection even though I favour the rawer vintage set glowingly recorded by Rosand and still available on Vox. True Sibelians must not miss these works and Kang and his orchestra do catch these silvery spells and confident little drinking songs - pride and eloquence, seduction and midnight poetry haunt these pages and it's all one especially well.

Alkan was counted in Busoni's pantheon of five romantics alongside Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. Brahms and Schumann are the references in the euphoric Grand Duo Concertant - nothing short of a 20 or so minute Sonata in three turbulent movements. This is a work of diving romance and if Alkan had stopped in the style of the first movement then we would have been able to 'place' Alkan. Instead we get a second movement that clamours in bass heavy capering for all the world like a picture of a Black Sabbath. As if to make ‘amends’ the finale is back to the helter-skelter tumble of vivacity we find in the first movement. This euphoria carries over into the Cello Sonata which is in four classically well-tailored movements. Alkan's originality or eccentricity (take your pick) returns for the Adagio which is part sentimental and part affecting. This perhaps offers a parallel with Joseph Holbrooke's chamber works in which sublime ideas and treatment suddenly find themselves up against kitsch music hall ditties. A wild saltarello with grand manner Hungarian gestures from the piano round out the picture.

Violist Jesus Rodolfo makes his PENTATONE debut, accompanied by pianist Min Young Kang, with an album showcasing three iconic 20th-century Russian composers who all left their homeland: Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky. Rodolfo presents selections of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet and Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G Minor in arrangements by Vadim Borisovsky, while Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne can be heard in his own transcription for viola and piano. The pieces performed revolve around love, decency, hope and optimism prevailing against mortality, mistrust, injustice and uncertainty. Within the context of a world slowly respiring from a severe pandemic, this has become a recording about the importance of the perseverance of hope, determination and love in the face of death and uncertainty. Acclaimed for his exhilarating, passionate performances, innate musicality and technical prowess, Spanish violist Jesús Rodolfo has been praised by The New York Times Digest as "a star whose light transcends the stage."