AVAILABILITY
www.arabesquerecords.com
info@arabesquerecords.com
1.800.966.1416
fax: 212.730.8316
While Laurel have done
a great deal for Bloch we must not overlook
the exhaustive work of Arabesque in
documenting his chamber music. This
has been done with thoroughness and
with flair. Their discs are too easy
to overlook largely because they have
been in the catalogue for so long and
their profile has fallen.
Arabesque's Bloch family
are worth listing as a reminder of its
breadth of coverage:-
Music for violin and piano: Vol. 1 (Weilerstein
Duo) Z6605
Music for violin and piano: Vol. 2 (Weilerstein
Duo) Z6606
String Quartet No. 1 Portland Quartet
Z6543
String Quartets Nos. 2 and 3 Portland
Quartet Z6626
String Quartets Nos. 4 and 5 Portland
Quartet Z6627
Piano Quintets No. 1 and 2, Paul Posnak
(piano) Portland Quartet Z6618
Violin Sonata No. 1:
After the ruthlessly threatening manichean
fury the second movement rises from
an impressionistic haze to impassioned
heights only to subside into the same
lapping haze. In the final movement,
acidly searing singing and splenetic,
the listener is not short-changed in
the currency of anger.
Abodah, with all its
shadow-cast mid-Eastern sway, was written
for the seven year old Yehudi Menuhin.
Into it Bloch focused his prayerful
wonder at Menuhin's extraordinary God-given
talent. Menuhin was of course to record
the Violin Concerto in years to come.
Abodah signifies God's worship. This
reverential piece was the first work
ever dedicated to Menuhin.
The Suite No. 1 is
in five sections played without break.
It was written to a Menuhin commission
after Yehudi and Diana had braved a
six hour journey to visit the ailing
78 year old composer. This is music
that, for the most part, manages to
cast off the patterned academicism often
attaching to such solo efforts. The
Bachian tribute is there [6.20] but
spliced with Bloch's roving Hebraic
tendency.
The Suite Hébraïque
is in three movements. The Rhapsody
is the longest movement; almost as long
as the Processional and Affirmation
put together. The Rhapsody is pensive,
garrulous, tonal, looking both eastwards
and westwards and employing Hassidic
melisma. The Processional suggests a
brisk-paced cortege. It certainly does
not linger. Affirmation has that same
middle-eastern swaying melisma we find
in Rhapsody. It finishes with a Pulcinella-esque
valedictory gesture.
The second volume starts
with the 20 minute Poème Mystique.
This stands somewhere between Griffes,
Scriabin, Ravel and, disconcertingly,
Michael Tippett's extraordinarily elaborate
tracery in the Corelli Fantasia. The
piano and violin are equal partners
in this. The contrast between the hell-raising
spleen of the First Sonata and the predominant
serenity in this work is stark. Most
of the work was composed in Santa Fe.
The two players touch in the impressionistic
and mystical textures and colours with
great sensitivity. The way is made clear
for one of Bloch’s lovely all-conquering
melodies taken by the violin at 11.02.
This is something to treasure. The work
ends in shudderingly positive excitement
and clamantly rapturous singing tone.
Baal Shem is well known
not least for Nigun that display piece
taken up by many including Heifetz.
The movements are Vidui (Contrition),
Nigun (Improvisation); Simchas Torah
(Rejoicing). Vidui I can best describe
as a meditation shaken by passionate
storms, while Nigun is tempestuous and
full of virtuosic caprice. Listen to
the attack of the harp figuration for
the piano at 2.03. The Simchas Torah
is outgoing and optimistic with the
violin singing its considerable heart
out. Here, as elsewhere in these two
discs, the Weilersteins reveal very
considerable strengths. The most convincing
playing yet and the most triumphant.
The Second Suite for
solo violin is changeable and charged
with volatility even if the academic
profile raises its head here, more so
than in No 1. It is a work that holds
the interest but not the affection.
Contrast this with Nuit Exotique, a
work dedicated to Joseph Szigeti, a
soloist who, along with Menuhin, also
played the Bloch Violin Concerto. This
may perhaps be bracketed with works
such as Szymanowski's Fontane d'Arethuse
or the Song of Roxanne. It has that
same Sicilian-Arabic mystical mien that
suffuses the Polish composer's Krol
Roger.
The recording is strong and clear and
the Weilerstein Duo fully engage with
the music even though some of these
pieces must have been learnt specially
for this project without the benefit
of live concert performance.
As with the quartets discs the annotation
is of a high standard.
To the best of my knowledge no other
company has achieved such thorough coverage
on CD and while you may well prefer
individual works in isolated collections
on other labels the present performances
and recordings are of the very highest
standard.
Rob Barnett
The Weilerstein Duo 
