Alfred SCHNITTKE
Music for Violin and Piano
Joanna Kurkowicz, violin; Sergey Schepkin, piano.
BRIDGE 9104 [60.52]
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Until I'd heard this disc, I hadn't been playing my Schnittke works for violin
and piano very much. My versions seem too edgy and too thin, almost
one-dimensional. Schnittke works can be difficult to perform, and in some
cases, virtually impenetrable to audiences. But these fiery works have warmth
and humor. In this remarkable disc, Joanna Kurkowicz and Sergey Schepkin
find both. Their rendition of the twelve-tone Violin Sonata No. 1 veers from
sardonic to tender, capped by bizarre rhumba rhythms in IV. These two musicians
perform as if joined at the hip. Unlike Luba Edlina's and Rostislaw Subinsky's
over-refined version (CHAN 8343), Kurkowicz and Schepkin gleefully navigate
the choppy waves of this piece.
Kurkowicz's interpretation of Schnittke's A Paganini is a wondrous foray
into solo virtuoso technique. Violinist Oleh Krysa may have commissioned
the work (BIS CD-697), but his texture is sparse. He performs hastily, as
if afraid Paganini's ghost is spying on him. Kurkowicz is fearless. She doesn't
feel compelled to rush through the work. At 13:50, her version is almost
three minutes slower than Krysa's and because of that, the piece breathes
easily between the prestissimo flights of fancy.
Like most of Schnittke's works, the Sonata No. 2 (wryly subtitled "Quasi
una sonata") is a struggle between dissonance and consonance. Unusual techniques
abound but these performers careen through the tone clusters and microtonal
brambles like dancers through dense forests. Like the photo on the booklet's
cover, their interpretative light streams through the bars. In one passage,
Kurkowicz's violin shimmies up and down the scale, producing a seductive
squeal. At other moments, she finds intriguing ways to decode Schnittke's
erratic polystylism; for example, she uses wit when modulating those cranky
tempo shifts. Schepkin is the ideal accompanist, expertly handling the quirky
piano solo halfway through the piece and slamming his forte chords
with the right degree of surprise. Prelude in Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich
is a prickly tribute. Kurkowicz plays it in duo with herself on tape in a
beguiling blend of legato and pizzicato.
Peter Bates
