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 & 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
Signs, Games & Messages
Leoš JANÁCEK (1854-1928)

Violin Sonata, JW V11/7 (1914, rev. 1921) [17:29]
György KURTÁG (b.1926)
Doina, from Játékok, Volume VI (1973-) [2:28]
The Carenza Jig, from Signs, Games and Messages (1961-) [0:45]
Tre Pezzi, for violin and piano, Op.14e (1979) [5:31]
Fundamentals No.2, from Játékok, Volume VI (1973-) [0:30]
In memoriam Blum Tamás, from Signs, Games and Messages (1961-) [3:08]
Like the flowers of the field ... from Játékok, Volume V (1973-) [1:52]
Postcard to Anna Keller, from Signs, Games and Messages (1961-) [0:30]
A Hungarian Lesson for Foreigners, from Játékok, Volume VI (1973-) [0:19]
Fanfare to Judit Maros’ wedding, from Játékok, Volume V (1973-) [0:46]
Les Adieux (‘in Janáček’s Manier’), from Játékok, Volume VI (1973-) [2:05]
In Nomine – all’ongherese, from Signs, Games and Messages (1961-) [4:51]
Béla BARTÓK (1881-1945)
Violin Sonata No.1, Sz.75 (1921) [35:14]
Jennifer Koh (violin)
Shai Wosner (piano)
rec. April and October 2012, American Academy of Arts and Letters, NYC
ÇEDILLE RECORDS CDR 90000 143 [76:15]

Another month, another Janáček Violin Sonata. That can’t be so but it’s the case that two such recordings have appeared for me almost simultaneously. Midori’s was in the context of a triptych of sonatas including Bloch’s Second and Shostakovich’s. Jennifer Koh and Shai Wosner instead follow a deliberately obscure path, tracing Bartók’s First Sonata and adding a series of works by Kurtág, largely culled from two ongoing series, the multi-volume Játékok, and Signs, Games and Messages, which he began in 1961.
 
In any case the more performances of the Janáček, the better, the more so when they offer such differing approaches. Midori’s was a definably centrist kind of performance but Koh’s is more extreme. She tends to smear her tone – quite a deliberate expressive ploy - but by doing it so early tends to rob subsequent incidents of their incremental power. This is not an easy work to bring off consistently well, as the Ballada seems often to inhabit a different world if one is not careful. Koh (and Wosner) just about skirt this danger but she cedes architectural questions to Midori, and neither really keeps pace with the classic Suk/Panenka recording where the movement’s proportions are outstanding and where Suk reserves his smokiest tone for those salient moments of the slow movement that most require it.
 
Bartók’s First Sonata is rather better all round though even here she can press things hard. That relates not so much to tempi as to tone. She brings a lot of colour and some roughness to her tone and this militancy sometimes renders the sonata more vertical than horizontal. Set against that, the slow movement’s opening fiddle soliloquy and piano chording are alike excellent and the abrasive, resinous drive generated in the finale – which some may find excessive – is, at least, a positive response to the vitality of the music. The Kurtág pieces offer epigrammatic zest and music of sighs and airy charm. Some of these brief pieces are laments, tersely searing (In memoriam Blum Tamás) whilst others, such as A Hungarian Lesson for Foreigners offer Kurtágian drollery in 19 seconds. The Three Pieces for violin and piano date from 1979 and are deft incisive miniatures, with plenty of rhythmic vitality – a March theme is especially vibrant. Doina, a piano miniature, offers a cimbalom sound world. Both Koh and Wosner play these pieces with a beautiful sense of characterisation.
 
Indeed they play everything with fiery commitment. If that’s what you want from the two principal works then the first-class recording won’t exactly come as a disappointment.
 
Jonathan Woolf