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Naxos

Halvorsen: Sarabande, Passacaglia, Concert Caprice / Lomeiko, Zhislin

$19.99

Details

Composer
HALVORSEN BRUNI
Artist
Lomeiko, Zhislin
Format
CD
Label
Naxos
Released
Nov 15, 2011
Catalog #
8572522
UPC
747313252275

About



HALVORSEN Sarabande with Variations. Passsacaglia. Concert Caprice on Norwegian Melodies 1. BRUNI 6 Duos Concertants • Natalia Lomeiko (vn); Yuri Zhislin (va, 1 vn) • NAXOS 8.572522 (75:04)


Jascha Heifetz played Johann Halvorsen’s Passacaglia with William Primrose. Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman later took it up, and these violinistic celebrities have helped keep the composer’s name before audiences. The Sarabande with Variations, based, like the Passacaglia, on a theme by George Frideric Handel (the Passacaglia takes the Passacaille from Handel’s Keyboard Suite No. 7 as its basis), has not received such frequent attention. It’s longer and perhaps more imposing and requires strong left hands to execute its numerous massive double-stops and chords as well as an agile right one to survey its widely varied bowings. Violinist Natalia Lomeiko and violist Yuri Zhislin take the theme a bit more quickly than audiences familiar with it from its key role in Barry Lyndon might remember, and their subsequent tempos in the variations follow suit, although the duo brings a haunting poignancy and spectral piquancy, respectively, to the two relaxed variations near the work’s center. Despite the power they generate at the end, their approach remains generally light and virtuosic.


In the more popular Passacaglia, they adopt similarly sprightly tempos, and while they may not play with the almost self-conscious though wittily understated virtuosity of Perlman and Zukerman and may not sound so arch as do Heifetz and Primrose, they take greater advantage of the variations’ expressive opportunities. Once again they make a great deal of the more reflective central variation, and their approach to even the most straightforward variations combines flexibility and playfulness, with the concluding variation fusing brilliance with pounding rhythmic insistence. Halvorsen’s invigorating Concert Caprice on Norwegian Melodies (both Lomeiko and Zhislin playing violin) doesn’t enjoy such frequent outings as even the Sarabande, but its straightforward virtuosity (at times it sounds a bit like one of Heinrich Ernst’s variations on The Last Rose of Summer —of course in a setting for two rather than one violin, ostensibly rendering it more playable) should ingratiate it with audiences who enjoy violinistic figuration stretched to accommodate a generously stuffed bag of tricks (Caroline Waight’s notes suggest that the thick textures may have been suggested by the Hardanger fiddle).


By comparison with Halvorsen’s generally effervescent though occasionally darkly hued works, Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni’s Six Duos (Book 4) for violin and viola sound less subtle and surely less virtuosic, though no less straightforwardly melodious and surely no less dramatic (consider the outburst in the middle of the first movement—all of the duos fall into two—of the First Duo). Bruni, who had served as the director of the Opéra-Comique, seems to have drawn on his theatrical experiences in these duos in both their agitato and their cantabile passages—as he also seems to have done in his 25 studies for viola, which should help a violist develop a singing style as well as a basic technical command. Both Lomeiko and Zhislin produce a heavier tonal weight in these works, but they’re also attuned to their melodic elegance and their tantalizing rhythmic playfulness (as in the First Duo’s second movement). Some of the duos (as in the Second’s first movement), on the other hand, sound more earnest or, as in that work’s second movement or the introduction to the Fifth Duo’s opening movement, simply more introspective. But the tone of the Fourth Duo’s suave first movement seems to predominate. Violinist Angelo Cicillini and violist Fabrizio Ammetto included Bruni’s duos on Mondo Musica 96078, which I warmly recommended in Fanfare 23:4; Lomeiko’s and Zhislin’s articulation sounds sharper and their rhythms more pointed, and the recorded sounds at once closer and cleaner, though it has plenty of the warmth radiated by Mondo Musica’s engineers.


Throughout the program, varied though it may be, Lomeiko and Zhislin produce sweetly homogeneous textures that hardly ever sound abrasive, and their ensemble retains its sense of unanimity throughout even the greatest difficulties. Naxos’s lively recorded sound presents both instrumentalists in balanced fidelity with enough reverberation to ensure warmth in addition to clarity. Enthusiastically recommended to all types of listeners.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham

Tracklist 15 tracks

  1. 1 Sarabande con variazioni, theme de Handel 08:53
    Track
    1
    Title
    Sarabande con variazioni, theme de Handel
    Duration
    08:53
    Composer
    Johan Halvorsen
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  2. 2 Passacaglia in G Minor (after G.F. Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 7 in G Minor, HWV 432: VI. Passacaille) 06:44
    Track
    2
    Title
    Passacaglia in G Minor (after G.F. Handel's Keyboard Suite No. 7 in G Minor, HWV 432: VI. Passacaille)
    Duration
    06:44
    Composer
    Johan Halvorsen
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  3. 3 Concert Caprice on Norwegian Melodies 06:01
    Track
    3
    Title
    Concert Caprice on Norwegian Melodies
    Duration
    06:01
    Composer
    Johan Halvorsen
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  4. 4 I. Allegro moderato 04:29
    Track
    4
    Title
    I. Allegro moderato
    Duration
    04:29
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  5. 5 II. Allegro assai 04:41
    Track
    5
    Title
    II. Allegro assai
    Duration
    04:41
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  6. 6 I. Allegro con moto 03:55
    Track
    6
    Title
    I. Allegro con moto
    Duration
    03:55
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  7. 7 II. Andante 05:19
    Track
    7
    Title
    II. Andante
    Duration
    05:19
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  8. 8 I. Allegro moderato 04:52
    Track
    8
    Title
    I. Allegro moderato
    Duration
    04:52
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  9. 9 II. Menuetto: Moderato 04:22
    Track
    9
    Title
    II. Menuetto: Moderato
    Duration
    04:22
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  10. 10 I. Allegro maestoso 04:06
    Track
    10
    Title
    I. Allegro maestoso
    Duration
    04:06
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  11. 11 II. Allegretto scherzando 03:43
    Track
    11
    Title
    II. Allegretto scherzando
    Duration
    03:43
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  12. 12 I. Adagio - Allegro 05:27
    Track
    12
    Title
    I. Adagio - Allegro
    Duration
    05:27
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  13. 13 II. Andante sostenuto 04:06
    Track
    13
    Title
    II. Andante sostenuto
    Duration
    04:06
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  14. 14 I. Adagio 04:03
    Track
    14
    Title
    I. Adagio
    Duration
    04:03
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin
  15. 15 II. Finale: Allegro scherzando 04:24
    Track
    15
    Title
    II. Finale: Allegro scherzando
    Duration
    04:24
    Composer
    Antonio Bartolomeo Bruni
    Performer
    Natalia Lomeiko, Yuri Zhislin