Composer: Jakub Ciupinski, John Corigliano, Philip Glass, Morten Johannes Lauridsen, Arvo Pärt, Maurice Ravel
Performer: Anne Akiko Meyers, Jakub Ciupinski, Elizabeth Pridgen, Akira Eguchi
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra
Conductor: Kristjan Järvi
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Avie
Catalogue: AV2386
Release: 2018
Size: 1.11 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Glass: Metamorphosis II
02. Pärt: Fratres for Violin & Orchestra
03. Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel
04. Ravel: Tzigane
05. Corigliano: Lullaby for Natalie
06. Ciupinski: Edo Lullaby
07. Ciupinski: Wreck of the Umbria
08. Lauridsen: O magnum mysterium
‘Mirror in Mirror’ is the most personal recording to date by best-selling violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, a reflective and spiritual journey that weaves a beautiful story through commissions and arrangements by Philip Glass, John Corigliano, Jakob Ciupinski and Morten Lauridsen, alongside works by Arvo Part and Maurice Ravel.
Superstar violinist Anne Akiko Meyers is one of today’s most in-demand classical performers. A Billboard Top Selling Classical Instrumentalist of the Year, she is beloved by audiences around the world, with a reputation for innovative programmes and ground-breaking commissions. Mirror in Mirror marks her 36th studio album and is her most personal project to date.
With the exception of Ravel, Anne collaborated with all of the composers and arrangers on this album. Several of the works were written for her. The music is reflective and spiritual, and weaves a compelling story. Philip Glass’ Metamorphosis II is heard in an arrangement commissioned by Anne. The original version inspired Fratres by Arvo Part, whose Spiegel im Spiegel (Mirror in Mirror) provides the album’s title. John Corigliano’s Lullaby for Natalie was written to commemorate the birth of Anne’s first daughter. Anne has commissioned numerous works by Jakob Ciupinski who combines acoustic instruments with electronics in Edo Lullaby – a modern setting of a traditional Japanese melody that Anne recalls from her childhood – and Wreck of the Umbria which conjures the composer’s dive and discovery of the ship off the coast of Sudan. Ciupinski contributes electronics to Ravel’s Tzigane, re-creating the sound of the original version’s lutheal. The album is capped by another Anne commission – the premiere recording of Morten Lauridsen’s own arrangement for violin and orchestra of his most famous choral composition, O Magnum Mysterium.
The American violinist Anne Akiko Meyers has always had a distinctive programming sense to go with her lush tone (sample the title work, Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel, for a splendid example of the latter). But she has perhaps never been more original than on this, her 33rd album. Meyers calls the album one of her most personal projects, and the description holds up even though the recordings were made at several different times. Much of the music was written for her, and she has worked with all the composers or arrangers at one time or another. The sequence of events is unique, with the trio of minimalist works that open the album, all arranged specially for Meyers, not presented as parts of an abstract world of their own — Glass and Pärt usually get programmed by themselves — but as participants in a long tradition. They react to Ravel’s Tzigane, here offered in a computer realization of its rarely heard original version for luthéal, a sort of piano-cimbalom hybrid. (This is worth the album price by itself.) And they now have inspired successors, such as Polish composer Jakub Ciupinski, who contributes a pair of works for violin and electronics. It’s not clear how these were realized in performance, but presumably a visit to an event on Meyers’ touring schedule would reveal the secrets; anyhow, they’re fascinating and evocative pieces. Meyers’ Glass and Pärt also address, and are addressed by, parallel styles closer to Romanticism from John Corigliano and Morten Lauridsen, whose O magnum mysterium fares beautifully in a violin-and-orchestra arrangement. The album is at once intelligently thought out, sensuously beautiful, and deeply spiritual. Highly recommended.