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             


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


REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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

 

 

alternatively
AmazonUK AmazonUS

Karol SZYMANOWSKI (1882-1937)
Works for violin and piano
Violin Sonata in D minor Op. 9 (1904) [20:33]
Romance Op.23 (1910) [6:43]
Nocturne and Tarantella Op. 28 [11:33]
Mythes Op. 30 (1915) (ArethusaŽs Fountain [5:41]; Narcissus [7:15]; Pan and the Dryads [8:06])

Lullaby (La Berceuse dŽAitacho Enia) Op.52 (1925) [4:10]
Three Caprices by Paganini Op.40 (1918); No.20 [3:40]; No.21 [2:45]; No.24 [8:06]
Joanna Mądroszkiewicz (violin)
Paul Gulda (piano)
rec. May 2008, Ehem
MUSIKPRODUCTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM MDG60315552 [79:33] 
Experience Classicsonline


There are a number of discs devoted to the violin works of Szymanowski, though there are subtle differences which sometimes makes a straight playoff difficult. It’s best to major on the majors in this kind of situation which means the Sonata, Mythes and Nocturne and Tarantella. This disc for example has no Nocturne from Op. 28, RoxanaŽs Song or Dance of the Harnasie – but it does include, quite unusually, the Paganini Caprice realisations.
 

Let’s head for the Sonata. In a resonant and rather echoey studio Joanna Mądroszkiewicz and Paul Gulda give a linear, direct, straightforward reading. I liked Gulda’s limpid playing in the central movement, as well as his control of the vexatious and difficult piano part generally. Mądroszkiewicz fines down her tone adeptly even at a brisk basic tempo. For those who require an assured and no-nonsense performance, even in a slightly too boomy acoustic, you won’t be disappointed. However there are more idiomatic ways of approaching things and the Dux pairing of Piotr Plawner and Waldemar Malicki (DUX0287) show that tempo relaxation for contrasting sections can bring greater rewards, and that ‘timing’ paragraph points in the finale makes the sonata come more to life. 

Clearly Mądroszkiewicz is not one to hang around in this repertoire. I quite admire her determination not to linger, not to bathe or indeed wallow. Still there can be casualties of such a basically inflexible approach and the Romance is, I think, one such. There’s greater warmth at a more relaxed tempo. Her Nocturne and Tarantella is forcefully evocative. For Mythes, that fulcrum of evocative eroticism, we find she fuses startling incursions with a fast basic tempo. Her body of tone remains broadly robust, unlike more ethereal approach such as Plawner’s. It’s a straight reading somewhat missing the colouristic and imaginative qualities of the music – and a little leaden rhythmically. 

The La Berceuse dŽAitacho Enia is a heavily laden piece and the Paganini Caprices, completed in 1918, unusual repertoire. They’re heroically and harmonically re-sited for violin and piano even if they’re hardly more than footnotes compositionally speaking. 

Having stated above that there are similar recitals to this I can note an exact parallel - by Alina Abragimov and Cedric Tiberghien on Hyperion CDA67703. Their programmes are identical. I prefer the Hyperion pairing for their wider array of tone colours, their tempo relation decision-making – this is not related to absolute speed – and their more subtle and evocative playing, as well as a warmer recording. 

Jonathan Woolf 



 

 
 


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.