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Violin Odyssey
Itamar Zorman (violin)
rec. 2021, Baldwin Auditorium, Duke University, USA FIRST HAND RECORDS FHR119 [76]
The Covid-19 pandemic gave rise to many horrors but, as many other events in history, it also had positive results. The 2020 lockdown occasioned many new ways of ensuring culture continued to flourish despite the difficulties. Novels and plays were written. New pieces of music were composed, and ways of sharing them with audiences were developed. The word “zoom” took on a whole new meaning. The Israeli violinist Itamar Zorman was motivated by the desire to seek out less well-known repertoire for his instrument by composers he felt should be better known. The disc is packed with great examples of just that.
We get off to a flying start with real energy in the shape of an oberek, a traditional Polish dance, by Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Her music has become appreciated for the wealth of brilliant tunes she wove into her works. It ends all too soon in a mere one minute and 42 seconds. The violinist’s composer father’s piece Wanderings comes next, full of propulsive restless movement.
The Lithuanian-born Russian Jewish composer Joseph Achron sought to help establish Jewish national music based upon traditional ethnic and religious heritage. Hints of this are apparent in much of his music. The very attractive Children’s Suite, of which this disc presents a selection, is highly descriptive. The tell-tale titles point to what you will hear. Jumping with Tongue Out is a good indication of that. Achron obviously had a good idea of how to communicate with a young audience; the suite will surely delight children of all ages. March of the Toys brings Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale very much to mind.
Of the two violin sonatas, major works on the disc, one is by a composer whose day has recently begun to dawn. Dora Pejačević, born into a noble Croatian family, was a fine violinist and pianist whose works found favour especially in Germany. Her music has undeservedly faded from view after the second world war. The skillfully written Slavonic Sonata of 1917 is chock-full of lush folkloric melodies. It is opportune that her works find favour once again.
Silvestre Revueltas may be Mexico’s best-known composer, though his work is not as widely enough known as it deserves. That is especially so in view of the music like the two pieces presented here. His one popular work, Sensemaya, a setting of a poem by a Cuban poet, describes the sacrifice of a snake to a God. Here we get portraits of ordinary working people, which the composer was interested in describing rather than presenting a chocolate box portrayal of Mexico.
The work by the Sudanese-Egyptian composer Ali Osman, Afromood, is a skilful piece for violin and piano with tambourine accompaniment. The composer has the violin mimic various instruments, including rock guitar which he started out playing in his native Sudan before emigrating to Egypt. This excitingly rewarding piece stays long in the mind.
Gao Ping’s Questioning the Mountains has its ethos in a tragedy caused in the composer’s native Szechuan following an earthquake. Using a traditional song of the region as a starting point, he weaves this throughout the piece. The music asks how and why the mountain has caused the tragedy. It is a clever fusion of Chinese and Western music traditions.
From Poland, Israel, Lithuania, Croatia, Mexico, Sudan and Egypt via China we come to New Zealand. Gareth Farr’s work about Lake Wakatipu, for solo violin, was inspired by a Maori folk tale. The music represents the tide of the lake and suggests a monster lurking within which pines for its lost beloved.
The other major work is by Erwin Schulhoff. His life was cut brutally short by the Nazis who put him in a concentration camp where he died of tuberculosis at 48. Schulhoff’s brilliant and innovatively creative music has found its deserved place in the repertoire. The second violin sonata is a perfect example of his indisputable flair for highly colourful writing. A particular lover of experimentation, he often infused his music with jazz which in the 1920s was making such an impression on the world. The piece highly successfully alternates the energy of jazz in the first movement with the heartfelt nature of its reflective second movement. It is followed by an excited and sharply sardonic Burlesca with asymmetric rhythms. The piece culminates in a speedy journey from ‘French impressionism to brutal folk rhythms’ which rises in intensity as its hurls itself towards the exit through which it bursts in a climatic flourish.
The disc ends calmly thanks to a sweetly beautiful piece by the American composer William Grant Still. It has seen many interpretations before this one for violin and piano duo. Still was a product first of jazz – he was a member of W.C. Handy’s band (of St. Louis Blues fame, not H.C as in the notes) – and later Edgar Varèse as his pupil. That gave him a broad spectrum of experience which he put to good use in his compositions. He is another composer whose music is gaining wider recognition.
I wholeheartedly concur with the impetus for this disc. One must regret the extent to which so many composers’ music is hardly known. Here is another demonstration that such people’s writing should be out in the world for all to hear. I also admire Itamar Zorman’s wonderfully evocative tone and skill, highlighted throughout the disc. He is more than ably accompanied by two wonderful pianists. They have produced a disc of really interesting and tuneful music that should spark interest in several lesser-known composers, so I say congratulations on a job well done!
