Music of Janacek,
Bartok and Kurtag. Jennifer Koh, violin; Shai Wosner, piano. Cedille CDR 90000
143.
American violinist Jennifer Koh is an adventurous sort,
leaning to performances of new and contemporary compositions as well as robust
interpretations of old favorites. On Signs,
Games & Messages she teams with Israeli pianist Shai Wosner for an
album of twentieth-century works by Janacek, Bartok, and Kurtag that amply
demonstrates her flexible playing style and enterprising spirit.
Koh and Wosner tell us in a booklet note that “Each work
on this album inhabits two worlds: the influence of folklore on one hand and
the composer’s striking originality on the other. As a duo, we wanted to create
a program that explores these intertwined stands of musical DNA, the tension
between the visionary modernism of these masterpieces, and the visceral pull of
folk and cultural memory that is so essential to the language of these
composers.” Each of the composers on the disc embraces modern musical
techniques while also acknowledging the traditional music of their native
lands.
The first thing the duo tackle is the Sonata for Violin and Piano, JW VII/7 by Czech composer Leo Janacek
(1854-1928). He wrote it in 1914, at the outset of the First World War in
Europe; Janacek said of it, "...I could just about hear the sound of the
steel clashing in my troubled head...." In the Sonata, Janacek plays with the rhythms of speech-melody, taken he
said from the cadences of indigenous folk tunes. You hear in Koh and Wosner's
playing abrupt stops and starts, just as Janacek intended and which give the
music a distinctively different quality from most music of the era. The pair of
performers do justice to the Sonata's
free-flowing ideas, from an aching melancholy through a quick, excitable
agitation, all the while maintaining the composer's melodic lines.
Next, Koh and Wosner offer a series of short items, mostly
for violin and piano and a few for piano alone, from Hungarian composer Gyorgy
Kurtag (b. 1924). With these miniatures we hear Kurtag at his most ambitious
and most risky, the music at once creative yet fairly accessible. Sometimes the
music sounds distinctly European; other times it seems almost American
folklike. Koh and Wosner give it plenty of time to develop, creating
wonderfully colorful little sound pictures: eerie, haunting, playful, many as
soft as a whisper, a few more loud and clamorous. Like me, you may enjoy
"Fundamentals No. 2," especially, a thirty-second piece featuring
vocal sounds, one labeled "unpleasant." Likewise with "A
Hungarian Lesson for Foreigners." They made me smile.
Finally, we get the First
Sonata for Violin and Piano, Sz. 75 by Hungarian composer Bela Bartok
(1881-1945). As with the previous selections, Koh and Wosner play the Bartok
with passion and repose, even though the music itself is perhaps the most
consciously "twentieth-century modern" of the works on the program.
Odd, perhaps, given that Kurtag is obviously more contemporary than Bartok, yet
Kurtag actually sounds more traditional, for all his inventiveness. Anyway, Koh
and Wosner provide a good deal of pleasure with their intimate intertwining of
instruments, from stormy to quiet to almost meditative.
Producer-engineer Judith Sherman and editor Bill Maylone
made the recording at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City
in April and October, 2012. If you've been following my reviews of Cedille
products over the years, you know I think highly of their audio reproduction.
This one is no exception and sounds splendid. Both the piano and violin appear
well focused and well balanced with one another, neither too close nor too far
away. There is in addition to the fine clarity a small but helpful hint of room
resonance, which provides a pleasant ambient bloom to the sound. Add to that a
wide dynamic range, a quick transient response, and a realistic decay time, and
you get a recording that pretty much puts the artists in your living room.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:
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