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Reminiscences
- Yuri Bashmet
Marin MARAIS
Suite in D Minor [11:50]
Jan Jiri BENDA
Grave [3.32]
Johannes BRAHMS
Scherzo 'F.A.E.' Sonata [5.51]; Berceuse
(Wiegenlied) [1.56]
Igor STRAVINSKY
Chanson Russe from Mavra [4.08]
Sergei PROKOFIEV
Scene of Farewell and Juliet's death from
Romeo and Juliet [7.32]
Marin MARAIS
Five Old French Dances [10:34]
Maurice RAVEL
Pavane [6.22]
Erik SATIE
Gymnopedie no. 1 [3.11]
Jean-Philippe
RAMEAU La villageoise
[0.47]
Yuri Bashmet (viola)
Mikhail Muntyan (piano)
rec. 2007.
ONYX CLASSICS ONYX4032 [51:43] 
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This collection coheres around Yuri
Bashmet's preference for these pieces
as concert favourites and recital encores.
The seven movement
Marais suite instantly commands your
attention through Bashmet's tender regard
for dynamics including many at whisper
level. In this he is aided by Flier
pupil and stalwart of many a Melodiya
LP Mikhail Muntyan.
Benda's Grave
from a Violin Concerto in G cleaves
to the romantic future rather than his
baroque present. The music in fact recalls
a Nino Rota film score. The Brahms FAE
scherzo is strenuous and stormy. It
sounds more tempestuous in this viola
transcription than in its original violin
garb. We return to some astonishingly
quiet playing just this side of silence
for Brahms' Wiegenlied. It is
played as if actually being used for
its intended purpose - a whisper, a
sigh, a breath just this side of silence.
Stravinsky's Chanson
Russe (aka Parasha's aria from
Mavra) appears in a transcription
by Samuel Dushkin - he of Stravinsky
Violin Concerto fame. It is a gentle
cantabile piece with some clever
pointing (1:38).
The Prokofiev Scene
of Farewell and Juliet's Death is
from Romeo and Juliet in a transcription
by Vadim Borisovsky (1902-1972) of the
Beethoven Quartet and, as it happens,
one of Bashmet's teachers. This is silvery
and seamless playing imbued with touching
humanity. More Marais is on offer in
the form of the nicely rounded Five
Old French Dances. These are cheery
but not until we get to the wondrously
breathy La Musette that we reap
anything like the rewards to be gained
from the D minor suite. Borisovsky -
father of modern Russian viola playing
- is again the arranger in the case
of Ravel's Pavane. This is another
triumph of the art in a completely sincere
and unshowy way. It puts the two players'
great artistry at the service of fragile
beauty - of chamoix smoothness reaching
towards misty-eyed enchantment. We are
not told who the transcriber of the
Gymnopédie No. 1 is but
again this is vulnerable, silky and
diaphanous stuff played with the delicate
touch of a master. Rameau's La Villageoise
is another piece of cheery rusticry
but over and done with in well less
than a minute. Clever.
Rob Barnett
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