MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2023
Approaching 60,000 reviews
and more.. and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


alternatively Crotchet

John TAVENER (b.1944)
Song for Athene – for solo violin and strings (1993) [6:47]
Dhyana – A Song for Nicola for solo violin and strings (2007) [6:16]
Lalishri for solo violin and orchestra (2007) [34:35]
Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS (1872-1958)
The Lark Ascending (1914, revised 1920) [15:56]
Nicola Benedetti (violin)
London Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Litton
rec. Henry Wood Hall, London, June 2007
DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4766198 [64:02]



The packaging is geared to admirers of the violinist first and foremost, whose name is emblazoned in print size two and half times larger than that of the composers. Yet Benedetti was the inspiration for two works new to the Tavener canon, Dhyana and Lalishri, and it was for her that Tavener has newly arranged his Song for Athene. The feminine muse as ever proves fruitful for him.
 
The big work here is Lalishri and in its size and ambition it most resembles the Icon of Eros which was recorded on Reference Recordings RR102. Lalishri takes as its inspiration the poetry of the fourteenth century Hindu saint Lalla Yogishwari and those qualities of intensity and simplicity that informed it are made manifest in Tavener’s writing. It’s cast in five sections and moving through “dance, ecstatic trance, to a musical expression of Bliss.” The dances are written in canon, whilst part of the violin writing is obviously based on Indian ragas.
 
Tavener’s patented brand of stasis and ethereal trance is usually written off as undramatic and indulgent – as well as a host of other things – but I’ve never felt that to be the case with his works for violin. Lalishri utilises the kind of pitch bending familiar in this kind of work with terpsichorean drama enriched by the solo violin’s ecstatically high and soaring lines high on the E string and demanding arpeggiated writing. The third Lalishri cycle opens with minimalist drive; here the colours Tavener asks for are at their most intense – with a hoarse sounding solo, persistent and demanding passagework, pizzicati and some thwacking drama. In each of the cycles a “celestial” tune appears, played at a distance by a string quartet, and its magical reappearance is one of rapt devotion and heightened expression - though we should note that its nearest cousins are Bruch and Elgar.
 
Dhyana means “contemplation” in Sanskrit  and it’s a small, compact work written for violins, violas, cellos and the solo violin. Tavener utilises drone and raga-derived sounds which he alternates with a highly evocative, almost defiantly late nineteenth century solo violin line. It seems that Benedetti’s romanticist credentials have tempted the composer to write far more explicitly in this vein than ever before.  The Song for Athene is best known from its having being performed at the funeral of Princess Diana. Its arrangement here is highly effective; the tremolandi passage especially and the surge of expression at 5:10.
 
The disc actually begins with another kind of “ethereal”, if that’s how you characterise VW’s The Lark Ascending – the booklet does and proposes ethereal as an over-arching album concept. There’s a close-up perspective on Benedetti’s violin which accentuates some ambient studio noise and renders some of her bowing rather unlovely. Orchestrally, the bass line is too heavy for my taste and some of Litton’s pauses too calculated. And whilst the tempo is an acceptable one I didn’t find the thing especially moving or entirely naturally phrased.
 
But the main focus is the Tavener. Atheistic souls will recoil from Lalishri but adherents will find the new work to be suitably attractive, not undramatic, and worthily added to the Tavener canon.
 
Jonathan Woolf
 



 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.