Release Date: 01 February 2010
Label: Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 034571177694
Genres: Classical Solo Instrumental
Description
Lawrence Power, Britain’s acknowledged greatest living viola player, continues his fascinating and acclaimed series of Hindemith’s complete viola music. This second disc features Hindemith’s solo viola sonatas. These works were all written for Hindemith himself to perform, and are thus are of special significance—as near to a personal testament, an intimate soliloquy, as exists in his multifarious and genre-spanning output.
The shadow of Bach lies over any composer writing a solo string sonata, and this is clear in the Passacaglia Op 11 No 5 Sonata, where Hindemith’s ultimate model is unmistakably the famous D minor Chaconne from Bach’s second violin partita—but viewed through a post-Brahmsian sense of sonority and architecture that produces a truly contemporary result. This ardent (and arduous) movement, a most impressive compositional feat, is the first example of a form which was to be one of Hindemith’s trademarks throughout his career, and it makes the Sonata something of a personal manifesto of artistic ambition. In later sonatas the severity of Hindemith’s mature style becomes evident—but harnessed, here, to the extraordinary virtuosity of the composer-performer, it gives rise to the most exhilarating and eloquent music.
Tracklisting
Marc-Andre Hamelin, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Litton
Gothic Voices / Christopher Page
Alina Ibragimova, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment / Vladimir Jurowski
Mahan Esfahani
The Binchois Consort / Andrew Kirkman
Mishka Rushdie Momen
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Takacs Quartet
Lawrence Power, Alban Gerhardt; Markus Stenz: Gurzenich-Orchester Koln
Lawrence Power, Simon Crawford-Phillips
Lawrence Power, Simon Crawford-Phillips
Lawrence Power, Simon Crawford-Phillips
Lawrence Power, Simon Crawford-Phillips
