Choc de Classica

L’abbiamo aspettato a lungo e finalmente è arrivato il momento: anche se il soprano lituano Asmik Grigorian è da anni una cantante celebrata sui palcoscenici internazionali, è solo ora che viene pubblicato il suo album di debutto, Dissonance, insieme al pianista lituano-russo Lukas Geniušas. Dissonance - che allude a Диссонанс (Dissonanza), una delle Romanze di Rachmaninov dell’Opus 34 - conta un totale di diciannove brani, ognuno dei quali rappresenta un conflitto interiore, sia in relazione al contenuto dei testi che alle circostanze in cui il compositore li ha scritti. E anche se il titolo dell'album parla di contrasti, Asmik Grigorian afferma: “al contrario, il nostro duo è in completa armonia.”La composizione del programma deriva quindi anche da un comune consenso tra i due artisti. Nelle sue Romanze, composte tra il 1890 e il 1906, Rachmaninov ha ambientato poesie e testi di Alexander Pushkin, Afanassi Fet, Heinrich Heine, Anton Chekhov e Fyodor Tyutchev, tra gli altri, tutti basati su un tema centrale: i conflitti interiori e la sofferenza che due amanti vivono l’uno per l’altra. In definitiva, è necessario passare attraverso questi stati d’animo e queste esperienze per poter provare vere emozioni e affetto.Il dramma del poeta, l’amore, la morte, la bellezza e il dolore, sono tra le tante sfaccettature che troviamo, ad esempio, in brani come Child! Thou Art as Beautiful as a Flower, I Wait for Thee o How Painful for Me e nel titolo di chiusura Let Us Rest, e che vengono espresse attraverso la musica. Come lo stesso Grigorian descrive: “Nella vita, lo scopo della dissonanza è quello di rendere le consonanze - come la bellezza e l’armonia - più evidenti, in modo che possano essere apprezzate di nuovo. La dissonanza ci dà la capacità di sentire e vedere chiaramente la luce della vita, perché senza dolore non sapremmo come apprezzarla realmente.”Grigorian e Geniušas, che brillano entrambi per le loro eccellenti capacità tecniche e per la loro particolare espressione musicale, sembrano tutt’altro che dei musicisti che registrano un album in duo per la prima volta. La loro simbiosi artistica ha il suo peso specifico nel loro equilibrio, che forse è anche rafforzato dall’armonia culturale esistente tra i due artisti e il compositore, e la loro interazione rappresenta uno dei più grandi momenti di romanticismo musicale. © Lena Germann/Qobuz

Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer’s repertoire is so very wide and varied, and his collaborations so very generous, creative and non-standard – not least thanks to his championing of contemporary Russian and Eastern European composers – that there will have been any number of attention-grabbing programmes up his sleeve that would have done the job of marking his 75th birthday in the recording studio. However his decision to go simply for the three solo violin sonatas of Polish-Jewish composer Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) feels pretty perfect. Most importantly, Kremer has been a key figure in the recent revival of interest in this Moscow-based friend of Shostakovich who found himself and his music repeatedly side-lined by the Soviet authorities, spearheading major projects such as the 2020 Gramophone Award-winning collaboration for Deutsche Grammophon between his own Kremeratica Baltica and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, for Weinberg’s Symphonies No. 2 and No. 21. Also though, there’s something rather emotionally resonant simply about the act of presenting under-recorded repertoire completely solo, given that this Moscow-trained former pupil of David Oistrakh put his own earlier career at risk through his determination to champion composers the Soviet authorities disapproved of, such as Schnittke and Pärt. Back, though, to Weinberg’s Solo Violin Sonatas. Written in 1964, 1967 and 1979, these are radical, deeply expressive, immensely technically demanding works, in the spirit of Bach while containing whispers of folk and Jewish music, that Kremer himself ranks alongside Bartók’s Solo Sonata for their challenges and rewards; and the readings we have here – vividly captured at Kremer’s own Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival and at Studio Residence Palesius, Lithuania – exude intimate knowledge of both the notes on the score, and the cultural background behind them. The defiant First Sonata dazzles the ear for its compelling human voice as much for its dizzying virtuosity, Kremer spicing his silky technical perfection with fabulous rough-edged texture. Likewise, the Second Sonata’s succession of almost character pieces feel imbued with subtext, as Kremer offers up a huge sweep of tonal and emotional colour. Take the delicately voiced Accompaniment (No. 5) with its conversation between the violin’s wispily delicate upper registers and its darker, broader lower reaches, arco and pizzicato playing off each other to brilliant effect; then the wide, defiant, elegiac long lines of the ensuing Invocation. These surely shoot to the top of the pile as the obvious go-to recording for these powerful works. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz

Philippe Cassard, Anne Gastinel and David Grimal present these two Beethovenian masterpieces. The chosen approach is one of colour and generosity. On this astonishing disc we meet a Beethoven come down from his pedestal, who is human and even jovial. Where so many others offer rigidity of discourse and fussy sonorities, the three musicians illuminate these metaphysical pages with the finesse, freshness and grace of the aquarellist. © La Dolce Volta

There are plenty of other recordings of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas, including some by Maurizio Pollini himself, but this 2019 live recording from the Herkulessaal in Munich, made when Pollini was 77, will appeal to more than just the pianist's fans. It's quite identifiable as Pollini in its urgent forward motion and virtuoso power, but, as great artists do, Pollini continues to explore. He does not treat the sonatas as a three-part set but takes each as an individual. The performance of the Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, is extraordinary. Pollini pushes the tempos, even compared with his own earlier performances, and brings an edgy, Lisztian quality to the music, with the gathering virtuoso scales in the finale set of variations coming out extremely excitingly. The Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, is a different kind of work, and Pollini has trouble following his own act. However, the last sonata, the Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, is once again very strong: Pollini provides plenty of fireworks once again, but he makes room for the even larger and more detailed set of variations with its remote-key trills and its syncopations. The recording, with some noise but no applause, is close up, slightly harsh, but gives a strong sense of Pollini's distinctive presence, and listeners may well feel that they just don't make pianists like this anymore. © TiVo

This 2020 release is among comparatively few in which the orchestral tutti in the Chopin concertos hold their own and enter into a real dialogue with the soloist. It's quite a different approach from that of the single-named pianist Yundi, who conducts his orchestra himself and bends it to his rubato-heavy interpretation. Both are attractive recordings of these concertos, where the orchestral passages are still too often done in a perfunctory way. However, this one by pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is likely to appeal to those hoping for a stirring traditional approach with a good-sized symphony orchestra, not a chamber group. Conductor Elim Chan opens each concerto with substantial, even slightly martial tutti that gives Grosvenor room to introduce high contrasts. His entrances are big, and his second subjects poetic and varied in tempo. Grosvenor truly gets his romantic genius on in the slow movements, which have all kinds of delicate effects. The virtuoso finale of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21, the fanciest movement of the set, works a bit better in his hands than that of the Piano Concerto in E minor, Op. 11, but in general, this is a performance the late 19th century would have appreciated and even treasured, and it is one of several phenomena creating a buzz around conductor Chan. © TiVo

The fourth recording from pianist Carla Bley's long-running trio with saxophonist Andy Sheppard and bassist/partner Steve Swallow, 2020's Life Goes On, is an intimate and lyrical album built solidly around the group's deep musical connection. Produced by ECM's Manfred Eicher, the record arrives four years after the equally compelling Andando el Tiempo and finds Bley and her cohorts in a relaxed mood. Where Andando el Tiempo was a deeply poetic, classical-leaning recording, Life Goes On is more casual in tone. The album consists of three multi-part works that serve as loosely connected thematic ideas. The first work and title track, "Life Goes On," is a laconic, friendly blues that Bley sets up for Swallow and Sheppard to then join in with a playful call-and-response interplay. That is followed in the series by "On," a languid Thelonious Monk-esque piece built around a steadily descending chordal pattern. The third movement in the piece, "And On," is played with dusky resonance by Sheppard and brings to mind a reworked take on John Coltrane's "Giant Steps." Similarly, the final movement, "And Then One Day," also draws upon the modern jazz tradition, evoking the rolling, minor-key atmosphere of the standard "On Green Dolphin Street." From there, they delve into the three-part "Beautiful Telephones," a spare, woozy piece that finds the trio draping each other in long noirish lines. The album's closing work, "Copycat," is more off-the-cuff as Bley sets up a lively thematic statement that Swallow and Sheppard then repeat in a jaunty, birdlike game of group improvisation. It's a nuanced game Bley and her trio have been playing for over 20 years, and one that never fails to uncover unexpected musical delights. © Matt Collar /TiVo