Vadim Gluzman - Time...and again

Intelligent playing of likeable repertoire – to be taken a piece at a time rather than swallowed whole

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Giya Alexandrovich Kancheli, Peteris Vasks

Genre:

Chamber

Label: BIS

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 79

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: BISCD1392

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Suite in the Old Style Alfred Schnittke, Composer
Alfred Schnittke, Composer
Angela Yoffe, Piano
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Fuga Alfred Schnittke, Composer
Alfred Schnittke, Composer
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Fratres Arvo Pärt, Composer
Angela Yoffe, Piano
Arvo Pärt, Composer
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Spiegel im Spiegel Arvo Pärt, Composer
Angela Yoffe, Piano
Arvo Pärt, Composer
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Time... and again Giya Alexandrovich Kancheli, Composer
Angela Yoffe, Piano
Giya Alexandrovich Kancheli, Composer
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Little Summer Music Peteris Vasks, Composer
Angela Yoffe, Piano
Peteris Vasks, Composer
Vadim Gluzman, Violin
Most of these pieces have an appeal of their own though I’m not sure they work as a programme. Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style is in effect new wine in old bottles and approximates in its wit and elegance to Warlock’s Capriol Suite. It’s an absolute delight, very nicely played by Israeli Vadim Gluzman and Latvian Angela Yoffe. By contrast, Schnittke’s youthful, unaccompanied Fugue takes Bartók’s Solo Sonata as a starting point but nothing much happens thereafter.

Peteris Vasks’s folksy, freewheeling (partly aleatoric) Little Summer Music is, like the Schnittke Suite, a pleasure to listen to, music full of colour and variety. Arvo Pärt’s Fratres comes bounding in on spindly arpeggios, its quieter music unaffectedly played much like the simpler, tender but equally aerated Spiegel im Spiegel.

Thereafter I would have preferred the grittier tones of a Shostakovich, Prokofiev or Bartók sonata for darkening contrast. Instead, Kancheli’s Time…and again (1996) inhabits a musical territory somewhere within earshot of Pärt, and its half-hour of oscillations between tortured fortissimi and sugared pianissimi begins to wear thin before very long. Had it not been for the fact that various other Kancheli works of the period sound similar I would probably have enjoyed it more. Good playing, though, and excellent sound.

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