Classical Music

There is no piece of music that the Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew.

This new recording marks the reformation of the legendary duo of Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Fazil Say. The Moldovan violinist says the Turkish pianist ‘is a volcano, with an indomitable strength and energy’, while he emphasizes the ‘freedom’ that her ‘spontaneous playing’ exudes: ‘At each concert, she creates a different character and tells a new story.’ The explosive duo presents a program devoted to Bartók’s Violin Sonata no.1 (‘a marvel from start to finish, one of his finest works’, says Patkop), Brahms’s D minor Sonata (‘I imagine a feather in flight at the opening of the sonata’) and Janáček’s Sonata, ‘an extreme work, wounded and heart-rending’.

REVIEW:

There is no piece of music — works by Tchaikovsky or Schoenberg, or an old folk tune — that the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja cannot play in a way that unwinds your expectations and forces you to hear it anew. So it is with the latest chapter in her partnership with the intrepid Turkish pianist and composer Fazil Say. The Janacek sonata that opens this recording and the Bartok Sonata No. 1 that closes it clearly play to the duo’s strengths: curiosity, an impatience with convention and exceptional technique. They pounce, almost too eagerly, on each of the Janacek’s lightning-quick mood changes; and in the Bartok, a piece in which the two instruments work virtually at cross purposes, they achieve an ESP-like mutual responsiveness.

Their rendition of Brahms’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, however, is the paramount achievement here. Resisting the urge to swath this wistful music in a big luxuriant tone, Kopatchinskaja adopts a timbre that’s sometimes bristly, sometimes gossamer-light. She and Say push the music to extremes: The quiet moments seethe and the outbursts approach violence, but it’s all done with impeccable control. The piece sounds bereft and heartbroken even as it avoids the clichés of Romanticism. It’s not the way I’d want to hear it played every time, but it’s invaluable for offering a glimpse deep into a work you might have thought predictable, which is exactly what these imaginative musicians are after.

-- New York Times (David Weininger)

Over the last 25 years, Fazil Say has firmly established himself as a musician to be reckoned with - as a pianist, director and composer. He is particularly noted for interpretations of Mozart, and it was with a recording of the complete sonatas that he made his debut recording for Warner Classics. Following the release in spring 2017 of 4 Cities with long-time recital partner, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt, he now turns to another composer/performer, Frederic Chopin, arguably the greatest of the 19th century.