Augustin Hadelich (violin) and Joyce Yang
(piano), recorded in New York June 2015
AVIE AV2347 [67:25]
In whichever order you
listen to the works on this disc, you will end up feeling completely
shell-shocked by the unyielding barrage of emotions and musical styles it
contains. Not only are these four
composers from very different musical worlds, but even within each work the
musical language is so varied and wide-ranging as to defy categorisation. This is an extraordinary piece of programming
and, it must be said, a brilliantly effective one too which works so well because
these are two such magnificent players.
Taking the music in the
order in which it appears on disc, we begin in a world which lurches
unashamedly from Erich Korngold to George Gershwin to Alban Berg and to Astor
Piazzolla, delves into a 1920s night club and shakes a leg at the streets of
New Orleans as if from the comfort of a plush cinema sofa. It has been described as kitsch; but Tango Song and Dance by André Previn is
much more than that, even if its musical language seems like a random sampling
of early 20th century fads.
Written for Anne-Sophie Mutter (at which time they were still husband
and wife), it is as genuine an expression of love as you could you imagine in
musical terms, and while Mutter and Previn recorded it for DG in 2003 in a
memorable performance which oozed love and mutual affection, I find in the
Augustin Hadelich and Joyce Yang partnership a freer feel, less constrained by
the overwhelming sensation of “luvviness” and more intrigued by the switch-back
ride of stylistic toe-dipping. Their
final flourish, Hadelich launching off on his upward spiral while Yang anchors
it all firmly to the ground with some tremendously solid piano chords, is
superb.
In many ways the Previn offers
the key to the programme; human relationships and feelings. We have had love
from Previn, and next we have anger from Schumann. He wrote his first Violin Sonata in the wake
of a heated argument with the deputy mayor of Düsseldorf concerning Schumann’s conducting
of the city’s choir. Not only does the
Sonata inhabit a stylistic territory about as remote from any of those touched
by Previn, it also seems a world apart from it in its unease and pointedly
direct gestures. It has, as Hadelich
writes in the booklet notes (which take the form of a conversation about the
music between Joyce Yang and himself), “violent mood swings”. If the duo partners had managed to convey a
strong sense of love and affection while standing a little outside the
emotional world of the Previn, they do the same with equally impressive results
with Schumann. Those mood swings are
vividly conveyed, the passionate outbursts of the first movement abruptly
giving way to the more introspective second in a way explained by their joint
view of the music as “telling a story” (they even go so far as to outline their
opinion as to what that story is). They
bring a biting, brittle edge to the jagged figurations of the third movement,
like two swordsmen fencing the occasional thrust.
After the emotional
intimacies of Previn and Schumann, György Kurtág’s three pieces seem like
studied exercises in detachment. The
first is desolate, the second dynamic and the third distant. Reading the booklet’s dialogue gives one a
powerful insight into how the performers see the work, and while it is
difficult to go back and imagine how it would come across without the benefit
of this insight, I find this an utterly compelling and at times profoundly
moving musical experience. There is in
this playing a real feeling of mutual personal respect.
With the Franck Sonata
we enter yet another new world of human emotion and musical language. This is far more than a composer’s feelings
at the marriage of a friend, and the passionate, explosive, deeply affecting
and at times almost unbearably intense journey the music takes over its four
movements seems to encapsulate a whole range of human emotions, not all of
which one suspects Franck would have wanted the world to recognise. Not for nothing does it stand at the pinnacle
of 19th century violin sonatas, and while its language might at
times seem orchestrally (or, perhaps, organisticallythrough) conceived, here we
have two players who are clearly attuned to each other’s approach and
understanding of the score, as well as having that instinctive feel for each
other’s nuances that brings the whole thing together in one soaring exhibition
of drama, feeling, virtuoso display and interpretative conviction. Their perfectly measured silences as the
second movement returns to its turbulent self are masterstrokes, and rarely on
disc have I heard the third movement delivered with such consummate balancing
of emotional substance and tonal poise; its final moments are truly
inspired.
The music on this disc
might offer up a roller-coaster of a ride both emotionally and stylistically,
but it is handled with such masterly self-assurance by this remarkable duo that
all one wants once it has run its course is to go through it all over again.
[This review was for musicweb-international.com from which website this disc can be purchased]
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