On Haik Kazazyan's first album for Delos, Opera Fantasies, the brilliant American violin virtuoso demonstrated the fiery, passioante, and technically astonishing sides of his artistry. And the same musical virtues are certainly on display here, in his glowing rendition of the three violin sonatas by the Norwegian master Edvard Grieg. In this new album - with dazzling and soulful collaboration from the rising young Russian piano wizard Philipp Kopachevsky - he also applies the sensitivity, subtlety, and interpretive insight needed to bring these three chamber masterpieces to vibrant life. Composed across a period ranging from Grieg's early twenties through middle age, these comparatively unfamiliar pieces not only confirm the composer's winning ways with melodic invention and nationalistic impulse, but also serve as a revealing guide to Grieg's evolution as a composer.

Belgian composer Jean-Baptiste Singelee, while often remembered for his groundbreaking treatment of the newly developed saxophone, he was primarily a violinist, and also composed beautiful works for the instrument. Perhaps Singelee’s time as the violin soloist at the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie inspired him to compose these fantasies based on popular operas. This first volume of opera fantasies from violinist Thomas Wood and pianist Brian Dykstra include fantasies on The Barber of Seville, Martha, and more. Thomas Wood is a Professor of Music at The College of Wooster, where he teaches violin, viola, chamber music, string methods, music history, and literature. He was the first violinist to be awarded the degree Doctor of Musical Arts in Violin Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to his teaching, he is active as a soloist and in recital, and has performed across the United States and Spain.

This new release from Affetto Records features fantastic renditions of timeless masterpieces, Presented by Grammy-nominated violinist and former MET Opera concertmaster (the first and only woman to ever hold the job) Elmira Darvarova and internationally acclaimed pianist Shoko Inoue. Clara Schumann’s magnificent Three Romances Op. 22, Beethoven’s immortal “Spring” Sonata, and Cesar Franck’s universally beloved Violin Sonata in A Major are interpreted here with breathtaking excitement, immense passion and marvelous poetry. An unusually intense and deep artistic connection between the two instrumentalists brings out the multifaceted dimensions and sparkling brilliance of these eternally beautiful gems.

In the third installment in their acclaimed series, Harry Christophers and the Handel and Haydn Society present a new live recording devoted to the master of the symphony – Joseph Haydn. This release showcases Haydn’s Symphony No. 8 Le soir, which completes the trilogy written for Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. Also included is the later Symphony No. 84 which shows just how much Haydn’s symphonies had transformed from those early years. Not only is it an incredible fusion of grace, brilliance and warmth but it also contains one of the most striking wind band solos in all of his Paris symphonies. Completing the programme is the Violin Concerto in A major performed by H+H’s fiery and expressive Concertmaster, Aisslinn Nosky.

Chamber music formed the central part of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ output in his later years, and the marvellously poised and largely introspective Sonata for Violin Alone, dedicated to Duccio Ceccanti, is among his final works. Also cast in a single movement, the Sonata for Violin and Piano is a fantasia that traces an imaginary walk through Rome, while the Piano Trio takes us on the lyrical wings of plainsong to the remote and craggy beauty of Fair Isle near the composer’s home in Orkney. The acclaimed Ceccanti brothers worked closely with Maxwell Davies, performing many premières of his music.

Erwin Schulhoff was a Czech composer of German-Jewish descent. He received his musical education in Cologne, Leipzig and Vienna. Under the Nazis he was captured for his Jewish identity and his music, which the Germans considered “Entartet.” Tragically, he died in a concentration camp in 1942. Schulhoff’s music started in the late romantic style of Brahms and Reger. Later he was influenced by the newly developed Jazz music, Dadaism and Czech folk music, all three fused into his own personal musical language. This new recording presents his complete output for violin and piano: one violin solo sonata, two sonatas for violin and piano and a suite for violin and piano. This is highly original and dramatic music in which the tension of the “Zeitgeist” is everywhere apparent. Here, this music is performed by Bruno Monteiro and Joao Paolo Santos, who have already successfully recorded the music for violin and piano by Szymanowski for Brilliant Classics.

Elena Denisova is one of the outstanding personalities in the elite class of Russian violinists. Her exceedingly high degree of musical maturity, individual interpretation and superlative virtuosity are recognized by audiences and critics alike. This could be heard recently at the Festival Opening Celebration of this year's Salzburg Festival in the Kollergienkirche.

A live recording togeteher with Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, violinist Nils-Erik Sparf and conductor Paul Mägi, from a concert in the Uppsala Concert & Congress in May 2010, published in the autumn 2016 at Swedish Society/Naxos. To perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with "their" own orchestra was a favorite project for violinist Nils-Erik Sparf, a concert that he lived with for many years. "It is a privilege to take this favorite romantic concerts in his hand," says Nils-Erik Sparf.Sparf comes from a musician's family in Rättvik, Dalarna. His father, Sparf-Anders, was a strong profile and renowned fiddler. Both folk and classical music played in the home. Since childhood listened Nils-Erik often the Brahms violin concerto by contemporary masters such as Oistrach, Heifetz or Schneiderhan.His musical through and touching performance in unique interpretations has resulted in a series of awards and prizes. In January 2004, he received the medal "litteris et artibus" from King Carl XVI Gustaf's hand and in November 2013 the Royal Swedish Academy Interpretpris.Nils-Erik Sparf employee of Music in Uppland as concert master in Uppsala Chamber Orchestra and as a member of the Uppsala Chamber Soloists. He has been concertmaster of the Royal Opera and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and is represented on numerous recordings. 2013 was Mozart's five violin concertos out with Sparf as soloist and leader of the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra.

Aleksandra Kuls was born in 1991. Her successes include First Prize at the Jozsef Szigeti International Violin and Viola Competition in Budapest and two special awards at the Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznan in 2011. She graduated from the Zenon Brzewski Secondary Music School in Warsaw, where she studied with Magdalena Szczepanowska. For this release, Aleksandra has chosen works from J. S. Bach, Krzysztof Penderecki, Sergei Prokofiev, and Eugene Ysaye. These pieces offer a broad overview of solo violin output, from Bach’s early Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, to Penderecki’s La Follia which was premiered as recently as 2013.

Joaquín Rodrigo is best known for his Concierto de Aranjuez, but the fame of this great work has hidden a prolific and courageous artist who struggled against blindness and hardship, and whose luminous, optimistic music is captured here in rarely heard works for violin that span almost his entire life as a composer. The timelessly beautiful Adagio from the Sonata pimpante is indeed comparable to that of the Concierto de Aranjuez, and all of these pieces are captivating in their intense lyricism and profound originality, from the Dos ezbozos expressing childhood memories of the Parterre Gardens in Valencia, to Rodrigo’s only piece for solo violin, the Capriccio, and the vivacious and nostalgic Set cançons valencianes.

Early Musings presents a comprehensive collection of new works for solo violin composed by American and American-based composers, almost all of whom were born after 1990. Though young, these composers' music speaks to the core strengths of solo violin repertoire, a genre that has represented a prominent pillar in the Western chambe rmusic canon since the seventeenth century. Across it's ten composers, Early Musings remains impressive in it's variety and range of musical expression. In addition to each pieces's strengths, violinist Davis Brooks also succeeds beautifully at embodying the musical landscape of a given composition. To this end, nearly all the album's pieces feature a traditional instrumentation, in so far as they used an unmodified violin, except for one notable outlier. Early Musings is the culmination of a four-month teaching and recording project between violinist Davis Brooks and ten youn gcomposers from Alabama. The compositions achieve a marked variety of styles while all highlighting the same instrumentation and to make it even more special, all composers on this release are students or recent graduates of teh University of Alabama.

Classical Music

Encapsulating the voluptuous sound of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s strings, Tasmin Little is both the soloist and conductor in this unique coupling: Vivaldi’s ever-popular ‘Four Seasons’ meets Roxanna Panufnik’s ‘Four World Seasons,’ the premiere recording of a set of highly inspirational pieces. As a complete cycle, ‘The Four Seasons’ offers a set of vivid tableaux, imaginative, enticing, and wonderfully contrasted, with ample chance for the violin soloist to display technique, sensitivity, and color. These are qualities that the British composer Roxanna Panufnik also sought for her own Seasons tribute, Four World Seasons, written for the violinist. Three of the pieces are dedicated to her, while the fourth, ‘Autum in Albania,’ is dedicated to the memory of Panufnik’s father, Polish composer Sir Andrzej Panufnik, who, his daughter says, was born, loved, and died in autumn.

This release from Cologne-based ensemble Exquisite Noyse explores the diverse and colorful musical world into which the violin was born- anonymous dances, arrangements and improvisations, instrumental renditions of vocal works including beautiful and haunting madrigals, chansons and motets by Arcadelt, Janequin, Josquin and Verdelot. This music of the Renaissance is brought to life in a very special way. Exquisite Noyse performs on instruments of the violin family and a Renaissance triple harp, giving life to a pivotal and important repertoire. Their choice of music, instruments, and performance techniques conjure an image of the violin as a new technology in a world undergoing radical musical changel. The violin’s earliest voice leaps off the strings and across the centuries to new ears. The mission of Exquisite Noyse is to work with the repertoire, performance techniques and instruments of the Renaissance creatively and imaginatively in order to reproduce the surprising and fresh sound the violin family made when it was still a new technical achievement in a time groundbreaking changes in music.

Tamsin Waley-Cohen continues her series of concerto recordings on this release with works by contrasting American composers. Already considered by many to be a mdoern classic, John Adams' Violin Concerto was described by the composer as having a "hypermelody", in which the soloist plays long phrases without stop for the uration of the piece. Although composed in 1949, the first performance of Roy Harris's Violin Concerto didn't occur until 1984. Since then it has been championed for it's "luminous orchestration and exalted tone."

REVIEW:

Roy Harris' 1949 Violin Concerto is an ambitious work, sprawling but dynamic. Slower sections are rhapsodic, drawn-out and soariing, while more driven passages have the wide open landscape sound so evocative of the US. The exuberant opening and abrupt ending sound more modern; they could almost be by John Adams, whose dense, multi-layered 1993 concerto is the other work recorded here. Tamsin Waley-Cohen handles its grueling solo part with athleticism and conviction, and both pieces benefit from the punchy playing of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and insightful conducting of Andrew Litton.
– Guardian (UK)