Schnittke Alfred - Viola Concerto - Tamestit Antoine (viola)
Kopioi ja liitä
The repertoire is Russian - Schnittke and Shostakovich, Concerto and Sonata. Tamestit is decisive about the pairing. He chose the Schnittke because it was...
The repertoire is Russian - Schnittke and Shostakovich, Concerto and Sonata. Tamestit is decisive about the pairing. He chose the Schnittke because it was dear to his heart. It changed his life after he won the Munich Viola Competition with it, astounding the judges by playing it from memory. He acquired an agent and a great deal of exposure. The music seems to foretell tragic events and a week after finishing it, Schnittke suffered the first of the terrifying series of strokes that would eventually kill him. It was the beginning of the end. Schnittke wrote the Viola Concerto in 1985, the year that Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, ended the Cold War and allowed Russians once again to enjoy the excitement of travel. The work was commissioned by the Russian violist Yuri Bashmet who gave the first performance a year later at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Ten years earlier in 1975 Shostakovich knew he was dying when he wrote the Viola Sonata Op147 and he knew it would be his last work. It was written for and dedicated to the violist Fyodor Druzhinin who was surprised and flattered when the composer contacted him to tell him of his intentions. Shostakovich did not live to hear his swansong but died on 9th August two days after Druzhinin sent him a letter saying it was a masterpiece. He performed it informally at Shostakovich's house on what would have been the composer's 69th birthday, 26th September, and later at an official world premiere on 1st October in Glinka Hall, Leningrad, now St Petersburg, on both occasions with pianist Mikhail Muntyan. It has since entered the repertoire not only of every viola player but also of many cellists both in piano transcriptions and arrangements for orchestra. The creative response of both Schnittke and Shostakovich to the expressive power of the viola has left the world with the two masterworks included here. Tamestit himself became enamoured of the rich, low tone of the instrument as a ten-year-old. He found that the open C string, the same C with which both Schnittke's Concerto and Shostakovich's Sonata end, resonated warmly through his entire body and that with the end-button resting against his throat, as his teacher Tabea Zimmermann showed him, he could feel the vibrations of the instrument as an extra voice. It is this human element in the viola's sound which draws from composers their most affecting works. It is with the expression of tragedy, of loss, of sorrow but of ultimate hope that it is most associated. For this reason Warsaw was an inspiring location for the recording. The sense of resurrection after tragedy, of renewal in the ruins, of peace after despair, pervades that city more than any other. One hears it in the strings of the Warsaw Phil, that bright, bitter edge which Tamestit describes as an 'eastern way of playing', combining clarity of purpose with depth of emotion, so fitting for Schnittke and Shostakovich.
Concerto for viola and orchestra (Lue lisää)
-
Largo
-
Allegro molto
-
Largo
Sonata for viola and piano, Op. 147 (Lue lisää)
-
Moderato
-
Allegretto
-
Adagio