Lars Vogt (1970-2022) early recordings collected here provide a document of an artist who always remained authentic, both to himself and to music. Lars Vogt never sought absolute truth, but truthfulness instead meant all the more to him. The man and the artist were always very close, never currying favour and never detached from the world. He was, instead, open and natural. "It's incredibly gratifying when you notice that you can perhaps light a little spark, a little flame for music in people, and when music helps you to find the path to your own soul."

Stravinsky, Bartok and Martinu were established international figures when they wrote these works for violin, travelling across Europe as well as the United States. With the onset of World War Two, all three composers would ultimately emigrate because of their rejection of fascism. In an age of political upheaval and cultural displacement, each of them found an individual approach to reinventing the language of tonal music, laying down roots in the west without abandoning their Eastern European identities. While the Russian-born Stravinsky was experimenting with possibilities of modern violin technique in his concerto, Martinu took these efforts a step further in his Suite concertante by blending the sounds of his native Bohemia with the colours of French neo-classicism. In the Rhapsodies, Bartok turned to the folk music of Hungary and Romania.

Frank Peter Zimmermann, joined here by the Bamberger Symphoniker and its conductor Jakub Hrůša, continues his exploration of the great violin works of the 20th century after his acclaimed recordings of works by Hindemith (BIS-2024), Shostakovich (BIS-2247) as well as Martinu and Bartok (BIS-2457), a recording unanimously acclaimed by the critics, gaining a Diapason d’or and named ‘Concerto Choice’ by BBC Music Magazine, ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone and one of Classica’s ‘Chocs de l’annee’.

REVIEW:

With Jakub Hrůša and his super-attentive Bamberg orchestra, Frank Peter Zimmermann trumps the self-confident projection of his younger self. Stravinsky’s framing movements seem defter now, particularly the opening Toccata with its chortling bassoons.

-- Gramophone

Their interpretation of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto becomes an equally sarcastic and seriously elaborated confrontation. Even in the opening Toccata, taken from the baroque form, the notes buzz and chirp like a summer meadow full of birds and insects. In general, the performers give the work a floating lightness that dispels everything earthly. At no point do you notice the technical demands.

In the two arias, too, the participants maintain the intensity and musical pressure. The concluding Capriccio then gives Zimmermann another opportunity to let his violinistic fireworks leap, jump, and shine in an artfully choreographed manner. He knows he is in the best of company with his accompanists, as they also carry the sarcastic aspects of the score as well as demonstrating the ambiguity with pointed articulation.

Bartok’s rhapsodies are constructed in two parts, like a Csárdás, which has a slow and a fast part. Bartok has retained much of the character of the music here, which he borrowed from folk melodies. The performers know how to show this raw side of the music of the people with verve and well-dosed energy.

The first version of the Suite concertante already had a difficult genesis, as Martinů was, to put it casually, lovesick during its composition. The elegiac music of the meditation therefore has a special depth of expression, which Zimmermann and his accompanists shape with deep feeling.

Martinů created the fundamentally new second version of the suite primarily at the request of the soloist Samuel Dushkin. The Aria from this version links up with Stravinsky’s concerto, as does the same original soloist. Many of the elements that characterize Martinů’s works – references to Czech folk music, vitality, changing rhythmic patterns and a mostly traditional harmony that does not exclude harsh dissonances – can also be found in the suite.

Zimmermann also demonstrates his violinistic skills in the suite, which are characterized by elegance and mastery of the instrument, in an engaging and memorable, yet spontaneous manner, so that the suite shines with fresh brilliance and brings Martinů to the trapeze. Hruša and the Bambergers are still to be found at his side and are audibly at ease with the music of their not only geographical neighborhood.

-- Pizzicato

Also available: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 1 / Zimmermann

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the world’s leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography ranges from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Martinu, Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. He waited until the fourth decade of his career, however, to take on Bach’s Sei solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin. The first disc (BIS-2577) dedicated to this absolute pinnacle in the repertoire for the instrument was released in February 2022 to great critical acclaim. Now comes the much-awaited conclusion to this collection. Zimmermann compares these works to ‘a mighty tree, which protects me and crushes me at the same time’, the music giving him hope and strength at the same time as it confronts him with his limits as a violinist. On this new release, he now offers us the Sonata No. 1 in G minor, as well as the B minor Partita No. 1 and the Sonata No. 3 in C major.

Frank Peter Zimmermann, one of the most important violinists of our time, and his son Serge, who made his orchestral debut in 2000 at the age of nine with a violin concerto by Mozart, have succeeded in making a wonderful recording of the violin concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach together with the Berliner Barock Solisten. A great listening experience! The Double Concerto in D minor, one of Bach's most popular instrumental works, presents the principle of a contrapuntally linked, concertante dialogue between the solo violins in all movements.

There is no better recordings of the strio trio repertoire than those you will find here. - David Hurwitz (ClassicsToday.com)

In 2007 Frank Peter Zimmermann was able to realize his long-cherished dream to establish a string trio, together with Antoine Tamestit and Christian Poltéra. Three individually superb string players do not necessarily add up to a top-flight trio – even if they all play on instruments by Stradivarius, as here – but Trio Zimmermann immediately made a name for itself at international festivals and prestigious concert venues.

In 2010 the trio released its first album – with Mozart's seminal Divertimento – to critical acclaim. (More than 10 years later, that recording was the top recommendation in the Record Review series Building a Library on BBC Radio 3.) On following offerings, the ensemble explored the later repertoire for string trio: two discs with Beethoven's contributions to the genre, and a third with works by Hindemith and Schoenberg which have garnered distinctions such as Diapason de l’Année, the Chamber Award from BBC Music Magazine and a ‘Jahrespreis’ from the German Record Critics’ Award association. For their fifth disc to date the trio went back in time, however, as the three members together prepared a performing version of Bach's Goldberg Variations, described as ‘a triumph of combined technical ingenuity and musical insight’ in The Strad. These five discs have now been collected into a boxed-set retrospective, offering lovers of chamber music more than 5 hours of glorious music-making, in top-notch sound and including the original booklets with full documentation.

Past praise for previously released albums included in this set:

Bach: Goldberg Variations

The expertise and fluency of the Zimmermann's playing is evident. Their approach to dynamics is refreshingly flexible, and all three players bring a graceful approach to ornamentation.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 9, Nos. 1-3

These musicians are in command of the meticulously written extremes in expression, sforzandos not indiscriminately stabbed at but gauged according to the contexts in which they appear. Tempi are gauged to a nicety too. In sum, they do Beethoven proud throughout this exceptionally fine disc.

-- Gramophone

Hindemith & Schoenberg: String Trios

The Trio Zimmermann play them both Hindemith works with such energy, panache, and attention to the minutest detail that they are totally convincing and make a perfect foil to the rigors of the Schoenberg that follows.

-- The Guardian

Trio Zimmermann play Mozart & Schubert

The Zimmerman Trio plays with remarkably accurate intonation and a ravishing tone that’s also mindful of the Classical style. In other words, they don’t lay it on too thick, but they aren’t afraid to let the melodic lines sing. Schubert’s single-movement trio makes the perfect coupling.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; David Hurwitz)

Beethoven: String Trios, Op. 3; Serenade, Op. 8

The Zimmermann Trio offers what must be the finest recording of Beethoven's Op. 3 since the classic mono Heifetz/Primrose/Piatigorsky version. They bring out all of the first movement’s requisite brio, paying heed to the syncopated rhythmic underpinnings that support the scampering triplet passages. The ensemble lightens its sonority for the Andante without sacrificing body and definition, while they articulate the Menuetto’s two-note phrase groups and subito dynamics in strict tempo yet in a way that’s oblivious to the bar lines. While the Finale is a model of controlled ferocity, the musicians are not afraid to let the lyrical sections sing out sweetly (never cloyingly).

Power and delicacy effortlessly coexist in the Serenade’s opening March, while subtle dynamic gradations distinguish the Menuetto’s loud arpeggiatted tuttis. The Adagio’s long unison lines offer cogent proof that one can employ minimum vibrato and still retain a focused and alive sonority. The March returns da capo at the end of the piece, with slightly more emphatic fortes and lighter pianos this time around. The warmth, clarity, and ambient realism of BIS’s surround-sound engineering holds equal appeal when experienced in conventional stereo playback mode. This release is not just a worthy follow-up to the Zimmermann Trio’s magnificent Mozart K. 563 and Beethoven Op. 9 Trio traversals, but a reference disc in its own right. Bravo!

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

Also available: Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2 / Zimmermann

Since the mid-1980s, Frank Peter Zimmermann has earned recognition as one of the leading violinists, admired not only for his technical skill and interpretive intelligence, but also for his versatility in a wide-ranging repertoire. His extensive discography spans from Bach concertos and Beethoven sonatas to works by composers such as Ligeti, Magnus Lindberg and Brett Dean. But during the four decades that Zimmermann has been making recordings, he has never previously recorded Bach’s Sei solo, the six sonatas and partitas for solo violin which form an absolute pinnacle in the repertoire for the instrument. As he now takes on these works, it is with great respect for the task at hand – Zimmermann compares them to ‘a mighty tree, which protects me and crushes me at the same time’, the music giving him hope and strength at the same time as it confronts him with his limits as a violinist. On this first disc of two he offers us Sonata No. 2 in A minor, as well as the D minor Partita No. 2 with the iconic Chaconne and Partita No. 3 in E major.

REVIEW:

Zimmerman’s interpretations are the most impressive I have heard in recent years. The tone is magnificently focused, occasionally throaty but without excessive vibrato.

-- BBC Music Magazine

Previous installments of the Beethoven sonata cycle from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen have met with wide acclaim. Described as ‘conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ in BBC Music Magazine, the albums have received a Choc in Classica and the recommendation of German website klassik.com, respectively. This the third and final volume brings together Beethoven's last three works in the genre, composed between 1801 and 1812. The center-piece is the ninth sonata, the famed ‘Kreutzer Sonata’. 

2020 saw the release of the first installment in this three-album traversal of Beethoven’s violin sonatas – a disc which has garnered distinctions such as Choc de Classica and Cum Laude (Luister), with performances that ‘wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit’ (Gramophone) in ‘recordings that are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ (BBC Music Magazine). As Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen open the second disc, they do so with the iconic Spring Sonata, Op. 24. Completed in 1801, the work proved immediately popular with a second edition appearing only months after the first publication. There were also numerous arrangements for a variety of forces – including a song based on motifs from the sonata’s slow movement. Soon after completing Op. 24, Beethoven began work on a set of three sonatas of which the first two are included on this album. Musically the Op. 30 sonatas continue the development that had begun with the Spring Sonata towards a contrast-rich, symphonic style. Beethoven originally planned to end the first and shortest of the three with the expansive movement that later became the finale of the great Kreutzer Sonata. As this would clearly have ruined the proportions of the work, he eventually replaced it with a set of variations. Closing this album is the second sonata of Op. 30, in C minor. It is the most important of the set; a genuine Grande Sonate in four movements, and an early example of Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ style.

REVIEW:

This is one of the most responsive partnerships I’ve heard in these sonatas, and I’ve heard some really outstanding ones. The togetherness of these two artists in precision of timing and harmonic vibration in matters of phrasing and dynamics is an amazing thing to experience.

-- Fanfare

Frank Peter Zimmermann, one of today’s most highly regarded violinists, takes our breath away with this recording together with the Bamberger Symphoniker and their chief conductor Jakub Hruša – one of the leading Martinu conductors of today. They start off by exploring the lyrical side of Bohuslav Martinu, offered in the Second Violin Concerto (1943), to dive into the neo-classical idiom championed by Stravinsky that informs the composer’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin closes the album. Composed in 1944, only a year before Bartók’s death, it is a deeply personal statement which fuses the overall layout of Bach’s solo violin sonatas with Hungarian folk tradition with results that are as fascinating to the listener as they are challenging to the performer.

REVIEW:

Hrůša is as fine a Martinů interpreter as anyone on the podium currently. What impresses most here, however, is the clarity and naturalness of Zimmermann’s performances, remarkable in combining an intimate knowledge of the music (the result of long study) with a freshness of approach. This is, for me, the top recommendation for these two works and, frankly, is how Martinů should always be played.

– Gramophone (Editor's Choice, January 2021)

Highly regarded as soloists as well as chamber musicians, Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen are also known for an unostentatious and selfless musicianship which never obscures the music they are performing. When they started their collaboration in 2018, it was with the aim of playing and recording Beethoven's 12 violin sonatas. A series of recitals at prestigious venues and festivals was followed by the first recording sessions, which took place in September 2019. Enjoy the results!

Frank Peter Zimmermann is widely regarded as one of the foremost violinists of his generation. Martin Helmchen has established himself as one of the most prominent pianists of the younger generation. 

REVIEWS:

How elegantly unforced these works come over today. Zimmermann’s sound is light, flexible, and finely shaded, with Martin Helmchen delivering effortless virtuosity. The opening of the First Sonata brings an unleashing of exuberant energy, while the opening of the Second is the epitome of mercurial high spirits. These recordings are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing.

– BBC Music Magazine

They’re never afraid to express themselves poetically or to linger over an expressive moment. Yet there’s a briskness and momentum about all four performances. These performances wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit, and I suspect that Beethoven would have rather enjoyed the result.

– Gramophone

Magnus Lindberg (b. 1958) is among the leading figures in today’s contemporary music internationally. This new release by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by its chief conductor Hannu Lintu includes world premiere recordings of two new works by Magnus Lindberg: orchestral work Tempus fugit and Violin Concerto No. 2, featuring Frank Peter Zimmermann as its soloist.

This release also celebrates the composer’s 60th anniversary. Violin Concerto No. 2, written for Frank Peter Zimmermann, was composed during Lindberg’s tenure as the composer-in-residence for the London Philharmonic Orchestra. This three-movement work represents well Lindberg’s late lush orchestral style and is reminiscent to the tradition of great romantic violin concertos of the past. The concerto has three movements played without a break, with a solo cadenza towards the end of the second movement. The music is at times lucid and bright and at times lusciously sonorous, and the soloist is called upon to display both fireworks and soaring melodic arcs.

Tempus fugit was commissioned by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and premiered at the gala concert for the centenary of Finland’s independence in Helsinki in 2017. Although the work has a strong positive and even lucid fundamental tone, the composer did not seek to write a traditional anniversary piece. Instead, he sought a new approach through means that he had first employed in the 1980s, going back to the harmonic studies that he had undertaken on computer, using the LISP programming language – the same that he had used when creating his first major orchestral work, Kraft (1983–85). The result, however, is quite different from his edgy, even aggressive, early works: Tempus fugit is a 30-minute orchestral work embracing an Impressionist brightness of color, melodic lines and a warm Romantic glow. The work is dedicated to Hannu Lintu.

Frank Peter Zimmermann is widely regarded as one of the foremost violinists of his generation. He has been performing with all major orchestras in the world, among which are the Berliner Philharmoniker with whom he made his debut in 1985 with Daniel Barenboim; the Wiener Philharmoniker with whom he played first time in 1983 with Lorin Maazel in Salzburg; the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, all London orchestras, as well as all big American orchestras. Frank Peter Zimmermann is a regular guest at all major music festivals, including Salzburg, Edinburgh and Lucerne.Over the years Frank Peter Zimmermann has built up an impressive discography, and has recorded virtually all major concerto repertoire. On this new release, he focuses on the original and reconstructed violin concertos of J. S. Bach. He plays on the 1711 Antonius Stradivari violin “Lady Inchiquin,” which is kindly provided by the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf, “Kunst im Landesbesitz.”

The works on this release were performed in the Dresden Staatskapelle’s second symphony concert of the 2002/2003 season on September 29 and 30 and October 2, 2002. It was Bernard Haitink’s first subscription concert as Principal Conductor of the orchestra, after he had spontaneously declared his willingness to take over this position and support the Staatskapelle in the difficult situation that had arisen following the sudden death of Giuseppe Sinopoli the previous year. It still seems a stroke of luck for Dresden, and in particular for its orchestra, that it could find a personality of such international standing who had a deep understanding both of the Staatskapelle’s great tradition and of its special character and thus was uniquely qualified to maintain and enhance its high artistic level, its individual sound and its worldwide reputation. Orchestra and conductor had known each other since 1989 from recordings and concerts at home and abroad. This then was the beginning of a sustained, if all too short, period of continuous work togheter, which wonderfully met the highest expectations “at home” and on tour in Europe and the Far East.

When Frank Peter Zimmermann says that Mozart has always been easy for him, he needs only to recall his debut concert at the age of ten when he played Mozart’s G major Concerto K. 216; or when as a fresh 20-year-old, he made his first recording of the five concertos for EMI. He’s played these works nearly 300 times in concert, and one can appreciate the intense physical and spiritual experience that Zimmermann brings to these new recordings.

PAUL HINDEMITH FRANK P. ZIMMERMANN, VIOLIN;*FRANKFURT RADIO SYM. ORCH./P.JARVIENRICO PACE, PIANO ** CTO. FOR VIOLIN & ORCH.(1939*)SONATA FOR SOLO VLN, OP.31 NO.2,"ES IST SO SCHONES WETTER DRAUBEN';SONATA IN E FLAT FOR VIOLIN& PIANO, OP.11 NO.1; SONATA IN E FOR VIOLIN & PNO. (1935)SONATA IN C FOR VIOLIN & PN. (1939)**