Beethoven / Osostowicz / Tong - Beethoven Plus 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Quartetto Savinio - Complete String Quartets [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/10/2008

Volume II of SOMM Recordings' Beethoven Plus series sees violinist Krysia Osostowicz and pianist Daniel Tong reuniting to conclude their ambitious project to commission 10 leading contemporary composers to write 'companion' pieces for - and inspired by - Beethoven's seminal set of 10 Violin Sonatas. The result is a fascinating conversation between past and present in which Beethoven's mastery of the form prompts illuminating - and often surprising - commentary from entirely modern perspectives. Volume II includes Beethoven's three most substantial Sonatas - Opp.30 No.2, 47 and 96 - and the enigmatic A major (Op.30 No.1); works that go to the very heart of the composer's life, aspirations and music. New here are complementary and contrasting works that include Kurt Schwertsik's probing, sincerely touching two-movement Unterwegs Nach Heiligenstadt, which begins in angst and ends in sublime C major; Matthew Taylor's whirlwind Tarantella Furiosa, a virtuosic encore of sorts to Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata; and Philip Ashworth's Air, a lilting, lyrical commentary that seems to offer a response, in it's conclusion, to Beethoven's famously rhetorical query InchMust it be so?Inch David Matthews' Sonatina completes the new commissions in a compact, concentrated form that emulates Beethoven with almost forensic attention to detail, even while opening out his interrogation of the Op.96 Sonata (Beethoven's last such work for violin and piano) with challenging demands on both violin and piano. Beethoven Plus was presented in a series of concerts by Krysia Osostowicz and Daniel Tong (who provides informative booklet notes) at the Kings Place, London in 2015 and has since been performed in leading venues around the UK. Reviewing Volume I, Gramophone hailed InchOsostowicz and Tong's interpretative style [as] patient, affectionate, warmly conversational, sensitive to harmonic detailInc

Porky is lively and light-hearted, Rosa is a dreamer and Rüssel has a sense for the practical things in life. In this fairy tale, which originated in England, the three little pigs set out to seek their fortune in the big wide world. But the bad wolf has it in for them. Will Porky, Rosa and Rüssel manage to escape the bad guy? Only together and with trickery can they overcome this difficult challenge. King Carrot, on the other hand, is a carrot with a quirk, a crazy root that lives in it's fantasy world and bends reality until it suits it. He wants everyone in the garden to dance to his tune. But the other vegetables don't let him do that and so conflicts arise. In the version by master arranger Andreas Tarkmann, who wonderfully interweaves text and music, both stories become great audio cinema with feeling, drama and a happy end.