Piatti / Khachaturian / Pavlov - 12 Caprices-Khachaturian: Sonata-Fantasia - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Wen / Weinmeister / Rabl - Deqing Wen Shanghai Prelude [COMPACT DISCS] date 03/11/2016

Caprice, being a virtuoso form, mainly for a solo instrument, dates back to the 19th century. In these times, instrumentalists were frequently also composers - they would create pieces adapted to their abilities and the caprice was the most virtuosic genre among them. It is also the main topic of this album. The caprices by Alfredo Piatti, recognized by Yehudi Menuhin as the cello's New Testament, are fraught with difficulties, but there are plenty of beautiful and varied melodies and counterpoints using almost all possibilities of the cello. To Anna Wróbel, Piatti is more than virtuosity of the caprices, it is also captivating chamber music of varied atmosphere, interpreted and arranged (Andrzej Wróbel), in a family ensemble, for two and three cellos. Anna Wróbel is a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. She graduated in 2005 with honors from the Academy of Music Fr. Chopin in Warsaw in the class of professor Andrzej Wróbel. In 2012 she received her Doctor of Musical Arts from the same school.

In this album, Sergey Khachatryan presents the first recording of Ysaye's 6 Solo Sonatas Op.27 on the composer's Guarneri del Gesù violin - a magnificent, hypnotic instrument! Ysaye's Op. 27 is not new to Sergey Khachatryan, who has been giving the cycle in concert for a long time. Today aged thirty- eight, and the precocious First Prize Winner of the International Sibelius Competition in 2000 and the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2005, the Armenian violinist here once more demonstrates his radiant maturity, along the same lines as he did in his sumptuous recording, so personal, of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas (naive, 2008-2009, V 5181). Here Sergey Khachatryan delivers an interpretation of heightened feelings, where what might otherwise come across as impish is deliberately turned into something fierce (the Prelude of Sonata No. 2, which uses the opening motif of Bach's Partita No. 3), or that which is merely imitative becomes wild and relentless (the Finale of Sonata No. 4). He wilfully emphasises the popular inspiration underlying the complete collection, here replete with shadings and a sumptuousness previously unheard.