Composer: Peteris Vasks, Kurt Weill
Performer: Anthony Marwood
Orchestra: Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Conductor: Anthony Marwood
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Catalogue: CDA67496
Release: 2005
Size: 256 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Weill: Concerto for Violin & Wind Orchestra, Op. 12
01. I. Andante con moto
02. IIa. Notturno. Allegro un poco tenuto
03. IIb. Cadenza. Moderato
04. IIc. Serenata
05. III. Allegro molto, un poco agitato
Vasks: Violin Concerto ‘Distant Light’
06. I. Andante – Cadenza 1
07. II. Cantabile
08. III. Mosso – Cadenza 2
09. IV. Cantabile Agitato – Cadenza 3 – Tempo di Valse
10. V. Andante
Kurt Weill (1900-1950) began his career in the early 1920s after a musical childhood and several years of study in Berlin with the composer-pianist Ferruccio Busoni. By 1926 he was an established young German-Jewish composer but he had already decided to devote himself to the musical theatre (he married the actress Lotte Lenya in 1926) and his works with Bertolt Brecht soon made him famous all over Europe. He fled the new Nazi leadership in March 1933 and lived in America for his remaining years. Weill composed his violin concerto in 1924; its orchestration and harmonies suggest the Second Viennese School and sit somewhere between Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Weill injects humorous and morose themes often mixing the two together as if they were indistinguishable. He uses the soloist-versus-orchestra format, the violin often competing against angular rhythms in the orchestra with an agitated lyrical line; there is also noticable jazz influence. The violin concerto by Latvian-born Peteris Vasks (b1946) could not be further removed from Weills astringent work. As with many composers who emerged from eastern Europe in the 1980ssuch as Arvo Part and Henryk GoreckiVasks music has a very strong spiritual theme, in particular the tension between contrasting worldsgood and evil. His concerto for violin is fragile, beautiful and otherworldly, with just a small section of chaos depicting the fight of evil which is soon stamped out. Anthony Marwoods silvery tone and immaculate intonation is again on display in this fascinating disc.