MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

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


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

REVIEW
Plain text for smartphones
and printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos 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

 

 

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from:

Nordic Violin Music
Agnes TSCHETSCHULIN (1859-1942)
Berceuse (1888) [2:56]
Tor AULIN (1866-1914)
Four Aquarelles (1899) [15:31]
Christian SINDING (1856-1941)
Romanze Op.79 No.2 (1907) [7:09]
Bengt CARLSON (1890-1953)
Violin Sonata in E flat minor Op.6 (1918) [36:05]
Annemarie Åström (violin)
Sonja Fräki (piano)
Emil Holmström (piano: Carlson)
rec. August 2010, Nya Paviljongen, Kauniainen
ALBA ABCD 347 [62:01]

Experience Classicsonline


There’s a good balance between the known and the unknown in this release, and it’s almost always the latter that gets the collecting juices flowing. So let’s take Bengt Carlson first. Born in 1890, he studied in Helsinki and then, before the First World War, in Paris as a student of d’Indy. He wrote the Violin Sonata in 1918 at the age of 28 and it remained a favourite work of his youth, though he was never to compose another large-scale chamber work in the 25 years left to him. The manuscript of the Sonata was found in the archives of the Finnish Music Information Centre and this is its first ever recording. It’s probably also the first performance since its last known outing, at the Nordic Music Festival in 1921.
 
It’s written in four movements and lasts around 36 minutes in this performance. It bears the impression of chromatic Franco-Belgian violin writing, notably Franck, but perhaps less so Lekeu. There’s certainly a pervasive late-Wagnerianism too. The writing for both instruments sounds demanding, something this work also shares with the Franck. Puckish pizzicati lighten the rather unrelieved music in the fast second movement, where the sprite-like element is quite heavy. A sense of misterisoso and the clotted inhabit the Lento, a high tension lyricism that just about manages not to occlude the writing. The finale shifts close to a free fantasia at a few points but forms a strong and powerful conclusion, not least in a reprise, just before the end, of the mysterious spirit that lit up the slow movement. One problem emerges, however: in the finale the performers have taken out a repeat section, drawing on the precedent of earlier performances in which both the outer movements were cut. The first movement in this recording is heard intact. Then, in the booklet notes, in a strange twist, both Annemarie Åström and Emil Holmström ask any future performers to perform the finale in its original, uncut format. Which is fine, except that they haven’t. At the very least, I wish they’d recorded the uncut finale and included it as an appendix. That way we, and any prospective performers, could listen for ourselves and decide whether we prefer the ‘fantasia’ approach or the ‘stodgy sonata repeat’ form, if that’s what’s being offered.
 
After these textual problems it’s a relief to turn to the other music. The little known Agnes Tschetschulin’s Berceuse is a salon charmer from 1888, burnished with a few period slides. It’s certainly not profound, but then it doesn’t make any pretence to be so. Tor Aulin’s Four Aquarelles are what I’d call fringe-famous. But it’s surprising to see how very few recordings there are around of all four. Most fiddlers pick and choose, which makes their inclusion all the better. At the heart of the disc sits Sinding’s Romanze, a much loved piece, given an effective reading here.
 
Congratulations to Annemarie Åström for this well-balanced recital and to Emil Holmström for his work in the arduous thickets of the Carlson, and to Sonja Fräki for the less strenuous character pieces elsewhere.
 
Jonathan Woolf 

Support us financially by purchasing this disc from:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file