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

 

 

Buy through MusicWeb
for £5.99/£7.50 postage paid

Musicweb Purchase button

Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Viola Sonata in F major Op.11 No.4 (1919) [17:35]
Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Lachrymae for viola and piano Op.48 (1950) [15:06]
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Viola Sonata Op.147 (1976) [35:49]
Yuri Bashmet (viola)
Sviatoslav Richter (piano)
rec. June 1985, live, Freiburg
ALTO ALC 1186 [68:34]

Experience Classicsonline


This classic recital was recorded nearly three decades ago. It was taped live in Freiburg in June 1985 and features Yuri Bashmet and Sviatoslav Richter in a recital of consistently illuminating insights into the music of Hindemith, Britten and Shostakovich.
 
Hindemith’s Sonata in F major receives a glowingly lyric reading, it’s opening Fantasie full of exultant feeling and richly phrased warmth. Hindemith constructs the variations of the final two movements with such surety that one’s ear is led along the music’s pathways with an unerring sense of direction. As a first class violist himself, he is careful to balance statuesque passages with more powerfully angular ones, to allow lyric elation to flourish with dynamic power in tow.  The longish finale, a movement of cumulative energy and power, offers a renewed summation of his variational art. The whole work is marvellously projected by Bashmet and Richter.
 
The central work in the recital is Britten’s Lachrymae. Richter’s close association with the composer afforded him a deep understanding of Britten’s sound-world. Both he and Bashmet find a huge amount in the work, with each variation or ‘reflection’ being sculpted in the most intensely characterised way imaginable. Seldom does one hear this work vested with such colour and startlingly juxtaposed sonorities, each adding to the disquietingly cumulative, slow revelation of Dowland’s song. I’ve never heard it played with such personalised and emotive control as here. It bears some similarity with the Czech performance of 1979 by Josef Kodousek and Kveta Novotná – who take an identical tempo – but it’s altogether more viscerally shaped than that excellent performance.
 
Bashmet recorded the valedictory sonata of Shostakovich with his regular sonata partner Mikhail Muntyan some years after this live recital performance with Richter and that Red Seal disc is the better known, I suspect. It’s also a touch slower, though less revelatory perhaps in the excavation of the piano writing. Here, as in the case of the Britten, Richter’s friendship with Shostakovich adds an added layer of significance, and he proves an astringent but supportive partner.
 
What remains slightly disappointing in this work and in the case of the Hindemith and Britten too, is the recorded sound quality. This affects the piano in particular, which is a bit harshly bright, and also rather distant balance-wise. If you are able to overlook this deficiency, then this recital is mightily impressive one.
 
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






Error processing SSI file