August 9, 2017

  • Important Release of 20th-Century Violin Music

     Argot—Donatoni, Boulez, Lutoslawski

    Veronique Mathieu, violin. Jasmin Arakawa, piano.
    Navona Records 6105
    Total Time:  45:48
    Recording:   ****/****
    Performance: ****/****

    Veronique Mathieu is a young Canadian violinist who specializes in contemporary music.  She has commissioned a number of works for the violin from both American and Canadian composers.  This new release from Navona is really an opportunity to show off her technical skill in two intense works for solo violin and in a collection of pieces by Witold Lutoslawski for violin and piano.

    The album takes its title from the first work on the disc.  Franco Donatoni’s (1927-2000) work Argot (1979) consists of two pieces for solo violin.  The first features an intense flurry of activity and focuses on exploration of arpeggios in a very virtuosic and dramatic display.  The second piece invites the listener to carefully hear specific rhythmic ideas along with unusual slides both of which explore the far ranges of the instrument.  Donatoni is not a composer one comes across much but he is part of the Italian modernist movement that included composers such as Berio and Nono.  Argot is a quite dramatic work that draws the listener in from its opening bars and through the fascinating discourse that is laid out in the second piece.  Mathieu’s performance here is stunning with amazing technique both for the rapid passage work and for the unique sound quality used to add expression to some of the more avant-garde aspects of the piece.

    Pierre Boulez’s (1925-2016) works always tend toward the more cerebral and it is quite fascinating to hear a work such as this that is stripped to a single instrument.  Anthemes I (1992) was composed for the Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition.  As one might expect, it then traverses a host of violin techniques and challenges across its almost 9-minute playing time and across seven unique sections.  The piece is presented as a single track which makes it harder to distinguish these units, but that is a small carp as Mathieu leaves a little pause between them.  Mathieu is certainly more than up to the challenges Boulez presents.

    An exploration of Lutslawski’s music continues with first a brief work from 1951, Recitativo and Arioso.  Here one can get a glimpse of the composer’s three major chamber works for the instrument beginning with this earlier piece.  After a brief introduction, a really gorgeous, and somewhat melancholy lyrical section appears.  The central part of the work focuses on chromatic writing.  The piece is followed by the composer’s last work for the instrument, Subito (1992) which explores rondo form.

    More substantial and important though is the final Partita (1984).  The work was written for Pinchas Zukerman and Marc Neikrug and comes at the height of the composer’s own popularity and recognition.  The piece has essentially three movements with the central one being framed by interludes.  While the general structure might suggest keyboard music, the main movements bear more resemblance to a sonata in their tempi.  The work is equally important as it begins to display some shifts in Lutoslawski’s harmonic language and interest in more extended melodic ideas.   Allusions to Baroque music appear here, but also interesting is the way this work is somewhat a transition from the Third Symphony and the birdsong like ideas that would appear in pieces like Chantefleurs and chantefables.  The opening movement has its nods to major-minor tonality and perhaps possible dance forms, or gestures that appear in the music.  Anne-Sophie Mutter commissioned the composer to do a chamber orchestra setting of the work which she later recorded with him on the Deutsche Grammophon label.  Mathieu’s performance is quite dramatic.  She manages the quick shifts of rapid passage work with moments of sublime lyrical writing seem almost effortless as the music seems like it is veering off into the future.

    The album here is really a must have for those exploring the late 20th Century work for solo violin.  The Partita recording is the real gem here among many extra fine surprises that makes for an intriguing listen.  Jasmin Arakawa proves to be a perfect partner for these pieces and adds to the interpretive power of the recording.