MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb for £12.49 postage paid World Wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

 

Essentials – works for solo violin
Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz 117 (1944) [25:04]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 [28:51]
Eugčne YSAŸE (1858-1931)
Six Sonatas for solo violin Op. 27 (1923): No. 3 (‘Ballade’) in D minor [6:48]
Nikos SKALKOTTAS (1904-1949)
Sonata for solo violin (1925) [12:41]
Fritz KREISLER (1875-1962)
Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice Op.6 (1911) [4:54]
Herwig Zack (violin)
rec. Kammermusiksaal der Hochschule,  fur Müsik, Würzburg, 2007-08
AVIE AV2155 [78:45]

Experience Classicsonline


 

The disc’s title, ‘Essentials’, refers both to the self-limiting four strings of the solo violin and also to the cornerstone quality of the repertoire, avers Herwig Zack in his booklet notes. I think he is being rather over-generous to some of his colleagues when he says that the Bach and Ysa˙e and Bartók works occupy every violinist, as they do him. Bach, yes, but many shy away from the Bartók and you’ll encounter a swathe of fiddle players who never essay any of the Ysa˙e sonatas in concert. Technique may be getting better, so they say, but these works still retain their power to dismay.

Zack has organised a challenging programme, then, one that deals with Essentials. It also deals, so far as I can see, with inter-relations; the Bach is the canonic centre from which derives the Ysa˙e, itself a work of homage and the Skalkottas owes much to baroque procedure as well; Kreisler’s delicious Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice was dedicated to Ysa˙e. The Bartók is probably the most formidable solo violin work of the twentieth century. Another element is that of recitative, which permeates some of the choices of music – the Kreisler explicitly, the Ysa˙e in its form.

The Third Ysa˙e sonata is dedicated to Enescu and is the shortest of the six, though in many ways the most harmonically exploratory. This recording shares with its companion ones – though less so the Bach; the recordings were all made on different dates so far as I can tell – a very up-front and visceral quality. The abrasive immediacy adds a tactile, tensile quality to this sonata, a resinous terseness which some may welcome, others dislike. It lends the performance in any case a very much more extrovert character. Dynamics are vertiginous and there’s a sudden plosive quality to the playing. This extrovert, muscular and no-hold-barred reading is very different to, say, Oscar Shumsky’s linearity of expression (Nimbus NI1735 – a three CD Shumsky set).

Skalkottas’s links with Bachian procedure are a measure of this early work, one ironically almost contemporaneous with Ysa˙e’s more forward-looking sonata. Again for a more equable and balanced aural ride you might prefer Georgios Demertzis’s BIS recording (BIS CD1024). I tend to find the Greek player deals better with the light and shade of the sonata as well, vesting its cat-and-mouse passages with just a bit more subtlety, an impression heightened of course by the recording. It’s also the case that Zach’s vibrato can become oppressive in this hothouse recording acoustic, Demetrius’s slimmer tonal resources being capable of greater variations of colour. That said, for those who like the powerful declamatory style evinced by Zach this is the way to do it. Again, his Kreisler receives a strongly personalised reading. The restless, rather cagey approach certainly animates things splendidly but one may find, as I do, that the approach and the recording dampen the lightness and wit that others – Shumsky prominently – bring to it, especially the Presto finale (Nimbus NI2529-32, a four CD all-Kreisler box).

The recording is less of a problem with the intelligently phrased Bach Partita, in which Zach plays the Chaconne at a fine tempo and with sure architectural goals met. The Sarabanda is quite measured and reserved. And the Bartók receives a characteristically rugged and rough-hewn reading that brings out the tensile Bachian aspects with bold, abrasive brush strokes. There are plenty of emotive expressive devices here, and playing that keeps one listening throughout.

An excellent, revealing programme then, chosen with intelligence and a more than worthy successor to Zack’s Catoire Avie disc. The violin has been recorded too close though, which means that an element of aural weariness can set in and this, combined with Zach’s occasionally militant abrasion, certainly makes for galvanic listening. Still, it’s not all about mellifluousness and if you can deal with the aural questions you will find this a pungent recital, dashingly delivered.

Jonathan Woolf  

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.