Karl FIORINI (b. 1979)
             Concerto for violin and chamber orchestra (2006-7) [24:52]
            Emanuel Salvador (violin)
            Violin Concerto No. 2 (2011-12) [25:04]
            Marta Magdalena Lelek (violin)
            Sudecka Philharmonic Orchestra/Bartosz Zurakowski
            rec. 30 May – 2 June, 2012, Sudeten (Sudecka) Philharmonic Concert 
            Hall, Walbrzych, Poland.
            
METIER MSV 28533 [49:56]
            
            
 Living and working in Paris, contemporary composer 
              Karl Fiorini was born in Malta in 1979. With humility, eclecticism 
              and a keen sense of harmony, Fiorini’s music retains the attention 
              of the listener, often taking challenging and unexpected twists 
              and turns, but retaining cogency and coherency.
               
              Karl Fiorini’s Concerto for violin and chamber orchestra 
              is curious and intriguing as Fiorini expands, augments and even 
              distorts the sound of the orchestra. With a percussive opening, 
              eclectic passages and neo-romantic tones, this is pure and fearless 
              in its sprawling expressiveness and recalls the works of Shostakovich 
              and Bartók. Portuguese violinist Emanuel Salvador is capable 
              enough to realise Fiorini’s imagined sound-world. This certainly 
              comes to life as Salvador battles against the stormy double-basses 
              and explosive percussion in the third movement (quarter note 
              = 126). Each note is coloured with intense feeling and embedded 
              in a quilt of varied orchestral timbres. This is most evident in 
              the interplay of pizzicato and percussion towards the latter half 
              of the third movement. Altogether more estranged, yet eerily lyrical; 
              the opening to the fourth movement (Chorale, Canone & Passacaglia) 
              contains elements of suspense, heightened by Salvador’s musky 
              and sometimes pungent tone. As if standing to attention at the sound 
              of the horn in the fifth movement (Finale), the orchestra 
              disbands its otherworldly sound and morphs into a panic-stricken 
              crowd, jostling and colliding. All is then calmed by a klezmer-accented 
              clarinet solo, accompanied by the strings and then echoed by the 
              violin.
               
              Starting slowly then blossoming into a natural wilderness, soloist 
              Marta Magdalena Lelek’s sound is virile and breathtakingly 
              intense as she drives Fiorini’s Schubert-Brahms style neo-romanticism 
              into something altogether more bold and complex. In this spellbinding 
              concerto, orchestra and conductor are attentive to the convoluted 
              amalgamation of angst and mystery. Technically exceptional, Lelek 
              creates both glassy and gritty sounds to evoke the peculiarity and 
              tension evidenced by Fiorini’s composition.
               
              In these virtuosic pieces the two soloists have precise and apt 
              intonation and courageous performing styles. These concertos require 
              power and momentum as they alternate between dissonance and tonal 
              progressions. The players embrace this coming together of different 
              themes and musical ideas with endearing sass and electrifying pyrotechnics. 
              
              
              Lucy Jeffery