{"id":8502,"date":"2012-12-16T07:36:25","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T12:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=8502"},"modified":"2012-12-16T07:36:25","modified_gmt":"2012-12-16T12:36:25","slug":"daily-album-review-30-duo-enchantment-from-kirill-gerstein-and-tabea-zimmermann","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/12\/16\/daily-album-review-30-duo-enchantment-from-kirill-gerstein-and-tabea-zimmermann\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily album review 30: Duo enchantment from Kirill Gerstein and Tabea Zimmermann"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tabeankirill\"<\/a>Violas and violists are the butts of countless musical jokes that belittle a noble, old instrument with a bewitching sound, especially when played as well as on this German-made album.<\/p>\n

Russian-born pianist Kirill Gerstein, making a great name for himself for his individual style, teams up for his second recording with German violist Tabea Zimmermann on the Myrios Classics label. The result is a pleasure from the first note to the last.<\/p>\n

\"duo\"<\/a>The three substantial sonatas are borrowed from other instruments. But that makes Zimmermann’s interpretations no less worthy of our appreciation.<\/p>\n

The first is Johannes Brahms’ 1894 Op. 120 Clarinet Sonata<\/em> in F minor, for which he supplied a substitute viola part.<\/p>\n

There is, to my ear, a luminous quality to hearing the piece played on a clarinet that vanishes with the viola. The result is something quieter, darker, more haunting — and deeply beautiful.<\/p>\n

Gerstein and Zimmermann dig deeply but gently into their rich-sounding instruments, moving as one through the music’s shifting moods, part of the valedictory meditations of a great composer who drops crumbs of Bach throughout the piece to remind us where we’ve all come from.<\/p>\n

The duo finds an elusive balance of stillness and movement that works nicely in the Brahms and is nothing short of magical in Franz Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata<\/em>, from 1823, which is usually played on a cello.<\/p>\n

Here are two artists not interested in showing us what fine virtuosos they are; instead, they are sitting down with and for friends to share heartfelt thoughts.<\/p>\n

The last piece — the 1886 A Major Violin Sonata<\/em> by C\u00e9sar Franck — is in many ways the most interesting, because Zimmermann plays the bulk of it using the violin’s notes. This makes the music at once totally familiar, yet completely different in character.<\/p>\n

This is sound that’s more bronze than brass, more glowing ember than licking flame.<\/p>\n

Zimmermann is a master of veiled power. Gerstein plays with care and delicacy — but never as less than a full partner with the viola.<\/p>\n

For more details on this find, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here’s a substantial background video on the making of this album — in German, but with English subtitles:<\/p>\n