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


Support us financially by purchasing this from

Ernest BLOCH (1880-1959)
Violin Sonata No. 1 (1920) [28:46]
Violin Sonata No. 2 Poème mystique (1924) [20:20]
Piano Sonata (1936) [21:06]
Nurit Stark (violin), Cédric Pescia (piano)
rec. 2017, Teldex Studio, Berlin
CLAVES 50-1705 [70:15]

Nurit Stark really goes for broke in Bloch’s First Sonata. His razory and abrasive tone brings a corrosive quality to a first movement that sounds every inch an Agitato. He and Pescia, but particularly Stark, go on something of a switchback ride here and they are fast and furious, Pescia’s stalking left hand figures re-energising the musical argument, Stark sculpting the quietest of dynamics where required. Elsa Grether with pianist Ferenc Vizi on Fuga Libera FUG711 hover on the edge of audibility in the slow movement whereas Stark’s tone remains more vibrant and projected and the scurrying and evocative playing is certainly visceral. Whereas in the finale we return to the occasionally unremitting resinous drama that so permeated the opening. Love it or loathe it, Stark and Pescia are fully engaged guides.

The performance of the Poème Mystique, a suitable appellation for the more fluid and subtle Second Sonata, is very much attuned to its reflective, more elusive qualities. There’s no need here for the kind of bullish extroversion to be found in the earlier work. Stark and Pescia are restrained, thoughtful, colouristic interpreters, exploring the Hassidic lyric episodes at around the ten and twelve-minute mark with acuity and sensitivity. The pianist’s chording is both powerful and beautifully balanced. The structural awareness in the performance is excellent, though not necessarily superior to the competition, which is equally persuasive.

Those wanting more examples of Bloch’s violin works will be disappointed but those who prefer an all-sonata disc will welcome Pescia’s insightful and technically accomplished reading of the sonata that Bloch dedicated to Guido Agosti in 1935, which the Italian premiered the following year in Milan. Though some fifteen years separate it from the First Violin Sonata of 1920 there are correspondences between the two works: both in three movements and both predicated on motoric energy, which in the piano sonata’s case is spiced by Italianate dotted writing in the introduction. There’s little relief in a work that can border on the pitiless, a quality to which Pescia responds with the kind of intensity Stark showed in the First Sonata.

If the programme appeals the performances should do so as well. In the case of the Violin Sonatas I have a preference for Grether’s softer grained but more deft readings.

Jonathan Woolf



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