Carolin Widmann, who received praise and awards both for her accounts of Schumann’s violin sonatas and for the recital disc “Phantasy of Spring” (with music of Feldman, Zimmermann, Schoenberg and Xenakis) now applies her acute interpretive sensibilities to Franz Schubert. Widmann and Alexander Lonquich (whose own New Series disc with music of Schumann and Holliger was also a critical success) play the C-Major fantasy of 1827 and the Violin Sonata in A of 1817, as well as the B minor Rondo of 1826 (the only one of these works published in Schubert’s lifetime). This is duo playing at a very high level, as Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich emphasizes in the liner notes: “Not once does Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich’s intelligent and empathetic reading devolve into the trivial state of music for a domineering violin with piano accompaniment. Instead we are treated to a magically iridescent poem of changing colours, melodies and counterpoints.”
Franz Schubert: Fantasie C-Dur / Rondo h-Moll / Sonate A-Dur
Carolin Widmann, Alexander Lonquich
Die Werke, die die Geigerin Carolin Widmann und der Pianist Alexander Lonquich auf ihrer Schubert-Einspielung vereinen, sind nicht häufig im Konzertrepertoire oder auf Schallplatte zu hören. Zu Unrecht. Denn dass Schubert ein großer Klavierkomponist und ein überragender Meister der Sonate gewesen ist, eine Einsicht, die sich erst hundert Jahre nach dem Tod des Komponisten allmählich durchsetzte, trifft auch auf die Werke für Violine und Klavier zu, die mit dieser Aufnahme vorliegen: auf die späte C-Dur-Fantasie, bei deren Pianissimo-Tremoli im Klavierbass die Zeit stillzustehen scheint, während im Gesang der Violine unwirklich romantische Aura beschworen wird; auf das schwungvoll-virtuose Vexierspiel zwischen den gleichberechtigten Instrumentalpartnern im Rondo h-Moll und auch auf die nahezu klassisch ausgewogene Sonate in A-Dur aus dem Jahr 1817.
- Fantasie C-Dur op.posth. 195 / D 934
- 1Andante molto03:35
- 2Allegretto05:33
- 3Andantino10:20
- 4Tempo I01:14
- 5Allegro vivace - Allegretto - Presto04:20
- Rondo h-Moll op. 70 / D 895
- 6Andante03:27
- Rondo h-Moll op. 70 / D 896
- 7Allegro11:31
- Sonate A-Dur op.posth. 162 / D 574
- 8Allegro moderato09:20
- 9Scherzo03:56
- 10Andantino03:46
- 11Allegro vivace04:57
The dominant work is the C major fantasy D934, one of the less familiar of Schubert’s late masterpieces but just as extraordinary a single-movement telescoping of musical form as the more celebrated Wanderer Fantasy for piano. The heart of the work [C major Fantasy D934] is its central set of variations, but it’s the slow introduction, which is recapitulated as the fourth of the fifth sections, that casts shadow across the entire work. The disc is worth hearing just for the way in which Widmann colours that opening alone, reducing her tone to the slenderest thread, minimising her vibrato and gradually breathing life into the work. It’s extraordinary playing, full of imagination and profound intelligence, and just as powerfully effective in the smaller scale works, in the earlier A major Sonata D574 and the Rondo in B minor D895.
Andrew Clements, The Guardian
Das seltsame Werk [h-moll Rondo] beginnt doppeldeutig formelhaft, wie eine majestätische französische Ouvertüre, der man den glühenden Kern entfernt und den wärmenden Mantel genommen hat. Die Geige weiß nicht zu wem sie singen soll, das Klavier liefert ziellose Akkorde mit scharfen Punktierungen, einmal lächelt die Violine zur fernen Tonart F-Dur hinüber, um sich gleich wieder nach h-moll zurückzukrümmen. So klingt verletzliche, fragile, sich vor Beschädigung fürchtende Musik. Erregt warten wir auf Erlösung, doch lange Zeit kommt sie nicht. Zwar gibt es diese rustikale H-Dur-Passage mit den wippenden, schunkelnden Bässen, gibt es rappelnde Tonwiederholungen, doch großer Strom hört sich irgendwie anders an. Schubert macht indes das Fragmentierte zu wundervoller Kunst – und wie Widmann und Lonquich diese Idee weiterverfolgen ist die eigentliche Sensation. Beide Musiker nähern sich diesem tönenden Flüchtlingsdrama wie Sanitäter, sie bergen heimatlose Melodiefetzen im Quarantäne-Zelt, in das frische, fröhliche Luft erst am Ende, nach der Gesundung, dringt.
Wolfram Goertz, Die Zeit
[Carolin Widmann] gilt schon seit längerem als eine der virtuosesten Geiger ihrer Generation, wurde aber, da sie sehr viel zeitgenössische Musik spielt, vom Reklamesprech beizeiten unter „Avantgarde-Geigerin“ abgelegt. Alexander Lonquich, der Pianist ist ebenfalls vertraut im Umgang mit zeitgenössischer Musik: sein Vater ist Komponist. Hat eventuell die helle Gegenwärtigkeit des Klangbildes bei diesen beiden mit dieser Prägung zu tun? Oder die ungewöhnliche Dichte ihres Zusammenspiels? Oder diese so ungeheuer routinierte Ehrlichkeit, die zugespitzte Schärfe der beiden auf die harmonischen, rhythmischen und formalen Eigentümlichkeiten der Schubertschen Tonsprache? […] Fest steht nur, dass dieses neue Schubert-Album, aus den eben genannten Gründen, zu den großen Glücksfällen gehört.
Eleonore Büning, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Schubert’s music for violin and piano presents an unusual range of challenges. The earliest three sonatas, which are not recorded here (the ones published posthumously as sonatinas), are disarmingly direct. The Fantasy in C, on the other hand, has a monstrously awkward piano part, and both it and the Rondo in B minor can, in the wrong hands, sound as if Schubert just didn’t know when enough of a good thing was enough. Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich are wonderfully alert to the risks, taking nothing for granted, and their playing is of a kind that never just coasts along. Every slightest gesture has been considered, every interplay is of interest, every strange harmonic shift makes sense, every repetition is made to sound fresh. And the recorded balance is kind to both players.
Michael Dervan, The Irish Times
Die Geigerin Carolin Widmann und der Pianist Alexander Lonquich bewegen sich auf dem brüchigen Eis dieser Musik mit einer verstörenden Leichtigkeit, die selbst die alte Einspielung mit Adolf Busch und Rudolf Serkin – seit Langem meine Lieblingsaufnahme des Stücks – vergessen macht. Die beiden erfassen die Spannweite des Werks zwischen Abgrund und Utopie aus dem Geist der musikalischen Avantgarde – eine bestürzend vollkommene, eine gleichermaßen intellektuelle wie emphatische Interpretation.
Uwe Schweikert, Stuttgarter Zeitung
“A magically iridescent poem of changing colours, melodies and counterpoints”
Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich in the liner notes.
This insightful recording of Franz Schubert’s music is also a first documentation of the musical alliance between violinist Carolin Widmann and pianist Alexander Lonquich, which has been gathering momentum over the last four years. They first came together to play Messiaen in Salzburg in 2008. The following year a Lonquich solo recital in Rome convinced Widmann that they should collaborate on Schubert’s music for violin and piano.
In this album, recorded at Historic concert hall Reitstadl Neumarkt, the duo plays the C-Major fantasy of 1827 and the Violin Sonata in A of 1817, as well as the B minor Rondo of 1826. If the influence of Beethoven is still marked in the 1817 sonata, the 1826 and 1827 pieces remain striking in their originality. Written at the request of Viennese virtuosi Josef Slawik and Karl Maria von Bocklet, they are pieces that transcend ‘mere’ virtuosity. Lonquich describes them as “paradoxical”, compositions conceived as technical which nonetheless feel “thoroughly metaphysical”: “Schubert is music’s great Wanderer. He goes through highs and lows and subtle harmonic progressions. He’s invariably spoken of as the great writer of melodies, yet there is always extraordinary harmonic tension at work as well.”
Carolin Widmann: “There is ambivalence in Schubert: pain and beauty expressed with the same intensity. I can hear the Austrian countryside in his music when I’m playing and at the same time this feeling of reaching for the heavens. Great art is made out of this combination of rootedness and transcendence…”
Widmann and Lonquich’s empathetic reading casts aside conventions of violin and accompaniment, responding instead to the changing needs of Schubert’s music. Lonquich: “Through the insistence of Schubert’s rhythmic language, one often doesn’t know which instrument is taking the leading role. There is a continual shifting of emphasis which almost reminds me of Ligeti. What’s fascinating in the duo playing is the feeling that we must follow the same direction yet not draw too close together, develop the same breath, yet also retain our autonomy.”
*
Both Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich have previously recorded acclaimed discs for ECM. Widmann’s previous albums for the label include Schumann’s violin sonatas (with Dénes Várjon) and the recital disc “Phantasy of Spring” (with Simon Lepper, and music of Feldman, Zimmerman, Schoenberg and Xenakis). She is also a soloist on Erkki-Sven Tüür’s “Noësis”, on the “Strata” album.
Alexander Lonquich’s solo piano discs for ECM New Series include music of Robert Schumann/Heinz Holliger and Olivier Messiaen/Maurice Ravel/Gabriel Fauré, and he appears furthermore on Gideon Lewenshon’s “Odradek” recording.
The present album is issued in time for Widmann and Lonquich’s participation in the première of “Gefaltet”, a collaboration between choreographer Sasha Waltz and the composer Mark André, at the Mozartwoche 2012 in Salzburg.
Born in Munich, Carolin Widmann studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno in London. She has performed as a soloist with the Gewandhaus-Orchester Leipzig, Orchestre National de France (Paris), the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, RSO Vienna, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, London Philharmonic Orchestra and the China Philharmonic in Beijing, collaborating with conductors Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Silvain Cambreling, Vladimir Jurowski, Emanuel Krivine, Peter Eötvös and Heinz Holliger. In the 2011/2012 season Carolin Widmann will be playing the world première of the violin concerto "Still" by Rebecca Saunders with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sylvain Cambreling.
Born in Trier, Alexander Lonquich launched his international career by winning the First Prize at the International Piano Competition “Antonio Casagrande“ in Terni, Italy at the age of sixteen. Today his concerts as soloist and conductor are hailed by the international media and audiences. He regularly appears with the Camerata Salzburg, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Münchener Kammerorchester, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the HR Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt and others. He has also appeared most successfully as soloist of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Düsseldorf Symphonic Orchestra and others.
Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich in the liner notes.
This insightful recording of Franz Schubert’s music is also a first documentation of the musical alliance between violinist Carolin Widmann and pianist Alexander Lonquich, which has been gathering momentum over the last four years. They first came together to play Messiaen in Salzburg in 2008. The following year a Lonquich solo recital in Rome convinced Widmann that they should collaborate on Schubert’s music for violin and piano.
In this album, recorded at Historic concert hall Reitstadl Neumarkt, the duo plays the C-Major fantasy of 1827 and the Violin Sonata in A of 1817, as well as the B minor Rondo of 1826. If the influence of Beethoven is still marked in the 1817 sonata, the 1826 and 1827 pieces remain striking in their originality. Written at the request of Viennese virtuosi Josef Slawik and Karl Maria von Bocklet, they are pieces that transcend ‘mere’ virtuosity. Lonquich describes them as “paradoxical”, compositions conceived as technical which nonetheless feel “thoroughly metaphysical”: “Schubert is music’s great Wanderer. He goes through highs and lows and subtle harmonic progressions. He’s invariably spoken of as the great writer of melodies, yet there is always extraordinary harmonic tension at work as well.”
Carolin Widmann: “There is ambivalence in Schubert: pain and beauty expressed with the same intensity. I can hear the Austrian countryside in his music when I’m playing and at the same time this feeling of reaching for the heavens. Great art is made out of this combination of rootedness and transcendence…”
Widmann and Lonquich’s empathetic reading casts aside conventions of violin and accompaniment, responding instead to the changing needs of Schubert’s music. Lonquich: “Through the insistence of Schubert’s rhythmic language, one often doesn’t know which instrument is taking the leading role. There is a continual shifting of emphasis which almost reminds me of Ligeti. What’s fascinating in the duo playing is the feeling that we must follow the same direction yet not draw too close together, develop the same breath, yet also retain our autonomy.”
*
Both Carolin Widmann and Alexander Lonquich have previously recorded acclaimed discs for ECM. Widmann’s previous albums for the label include Schumann’s violin sonatas (with Dénes Várjon) and the recital disc “Phantasy of Spring” (with Simon Lepper, and music of Feldman, Zimmerman, Schoenberg and Xenakis). She is also a soloist on Erkki-Sven Tüür’s “Noësis”, on the “Strata” album.
Alexander Lonquich’s solo piano discs for ECM New Series include music of Robert Schumann/Heinz Holliger and Olivier Messiaen/Maurice Ravel/Gabriel Fauré, and he appears furthermore on Gideon Lewenshon’s “Odradek” recording.
The present album is issued in time for Widmann and Lonquich’s participation in the première of “Gefaltet”, a collaboration between choreographer Sasha Waltz and the composer Mark André, at the Mozartwoche 2012 in Salzburg.
Born in Munich, Carolin Widmann studied with Igor Ozim in Cologne, Michèle Auclair in Boston and David Takeno in London. She has performed as a soloist with the Gewandhaus-Orchester Leipzig, Orchestre National de France (Paris), the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia (Rome), the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, RSO Vienna, the BBC Symphony Orchestra London, London Philharmonic Orchestra and the China Philharmonic in Beijing, collaborating with conductors Riccardo Chailly, Sir Roger Norrington, Silvain Cambreling, Vladimir Jurowski, Emanuel Krivine, Peter Eötvös and Heinz Holliger. In the 2011/2012 season Carolin Widmann will be playing the world première of the violin concerto "Still" by Rebecca Saunders with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sylvain Cambreling.
Born in Trier, Alexander Lonquich launched his international career by winning the First Prize at the International Piano Competition “Antonio Casagrande“ in Terni, Italy at the age of sixteen. Today his concerts as soloist and conductor are hailed by the international media and audiences. He regularly appears with the Camerata Salzburg, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Münchener Kammerorchester, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the HR Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt and others. He has also appeared most successfully as soloist of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Düsseldorf Symphonic Orchestra and others.
