Hindemith/Britten/Penderecki: Trauermusik/Lachrymae/Konzert

1. Trauermusik for viola (or violin or cello) & string orchestra
Composed by Paul Hindemith
Performed by Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with Kim Kashkashian
Conducted by Dennis Russell Davies

2. Lachrymae, reflections on a song of Dowland, for viola & piano, Op. 48
Composed by Benjamin Britten
Performed by Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with Kim Kashkashian
Conducted by Dennis Russell Davies

3. Viola Concerto
Composed by Krzysztof Penderecki
Performed by Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra with Kim Kashkashian
Conducted by Dennis Russell Davies

Product Description

Amazon.com
More music of mourning. Hindemith wrote his Trauermusik in London the day after King George V died in 1936, and he performed it himself the next day in a broadcast memorial concert. Solemn, sad, devotional, and resigned, it is tonal and very beautiful. Britten's orchestration of Lachrymae has more color than the much earlier piano version and lets the viola melt in and out of the texture. Penderecki's Concerto is also very somber and mournful. Opening with a disembodied, sighing viola solo, its single continuous movement is divided by stark contrasts of tempo, mood, character, and texture; alternating between agitated solo cadenzas, crashing percussion, intense climaxes, and singing lamentations, it ends in sighing fragmentation. Kashkashian, who presented the concerto's American premiere, plays it as well as the other works with intense expressiveness, easy brilliance, and a colorful, varied, unfailingly beautiful tone. --Edith Eisler

Tracks:

Trauermusik
Lachrymae op. 48a
Konzert fur Viola und Kammerorchester

Amazon.com

More music of mourning. Hindemith wrote his Trauermusik in London the day after King George V died in 1936, and he performed it himself the next day in a broadcast memorial concert. Solemn, sad, devotional, and resigned, it is tonal and very beautiful. Britten's orchestration of Lachrymae has more color than the much earlier piano version and lets the viola melt in and out of the texture. Penderecki's Concerto is also very somber and mournful. Opening with a disembodied, sighing viola solo, its single continuous movement is divided by stark contrasts of tempo, mood, character, and texture; alternating between agitated solo cadenzas, crashing percussion, intense climaxes, and singing lamentations, it ends in sighing fragmentation. Kashkashian, who presented the concerto's American premiere, plays it as well as the other works with intense expressiveness, easy brilliance, and a colorful, varied, unfailingly beautiful tone. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

Cool Penderecki.......2003-03-29

Kim Kashkashian is, I think, the best interpreter of contemporary viola music, and her performance of the Penderecki Viola Concerto has all of the ferocious, almost bizarre intensity that I have come to eagerly anticipate in her performances. The piece itself is one long movement that lasts over 20 minutes, and, while it undergoes a variety of tempo and textural transformations-- accentuated by Kashkashian, who takes generous liberties with the rhythms-- the mood stays almost uniformly dark and alienated. Like many modern pieces (it was written in 1983), there are plenty of odd effects and a full helping of orchestral exotica-- including practically every percussion instrument you can imagine. I am very fond of the piece, but it's not for everybody. Re: the other pieces on the disc, Britten's "Lachrymae" is strong, but somehow, Kashkashian's performance of Hindemith's "Trauermusik" doesn't stay imprinted in my memory. This is somehwat surprising, since her recording of the complete Hindemith sonatas is utterly brilliant. "Trauermusik" is very much in a Late Romantic idiom-- much more old-fashioned than Hindemith's other viola music-- and, while Kashkashian has put out good recordings of Schumann and Brahms, it seems her preferred cup of tea is edgy modern repertoire.

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