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Alina
Ibragimova: Hartmann Concerto Funèbre
Britten Sinfonia
Hyperion
CDA67547 (81')
BBC
Radio 3 'CD of the week' on CD Review
BBC
Music Magazine
The classical music world is
buzzing with news of extraordinary young Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova.
Aged just 23, her newly-released debut CD, featuring music by neglected
20th-century German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann, has won stunning reviews
from the music industry’s most respected critics. Named ‘Disc
of the Week’ on BBC Radio 3’s CD Review (1 September 2007), it
is also Editor’s Choice in the September issue of prestigious
Gramophone magazine. Meanwhile, in The Times, critic
Geoff Brown awards her four stars, describing Ibragimova as ‘a scorchingly
good violinist … she brings passion without mawkishness; and the control
wielded at high altitudes is phenomenal’.
The disc is the fruit of an
intense collaboration with Britten Sinfonia, whose playing was also singled
out for special praise. Guardian critic Andrew Clements, writing in BBC
Music Magazine’s September issue, eulogises: 'the way in which
the Britten Sinfonia support and enfold their young soloist's beautifully
nuanced and textured playing is a model of close-knit ensemble playing.'
The good news is that concert-goers
can hear Ibragimova playing live with Britten Sinfonia, in a programme
that includes the very concerto that bowled the critics over, Hartmann’s
Concerto Funèbre , written in 1939 to protest against Hitler’s occupation
of Prague . The programme also includes a Bach violin concerto and Schoenberg’s
luscious string work, Verklärte Nacht . Concert details can be found here.
She is
Russian, 23, and a scorchingly good violinist. This is her CD recital
debut: always a testing occasion, but especially for young violinists.
What repertoire should be chosen? Short classical lollipops and cross-over
tidbits? Good for sales, possibly, but probably bad for one’s critical
reputation, unless the goal, regardless of sex, is to be the next Vanessa-Mae-like
pin-up doll. Presenting a popular concerto – the Mendelssohn or the Bruch
– brings other perils, such as hurtful comparisons with one’s peers.
Ibragimova has chosen the third
route, towards serious and neglected repertory. She’s picked out the 20th-century
German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann, whose centenary passed three years
ago. Hartmann had his youthful iconoclasms, but the agony of the Second
World War brought out the tragic artist in him. Filling an entire disc
with his music won’t put you on top of the classical charts, but it definitely
wins you respect.
With her supreme technical command
and good taste, Ibragimova has nothing to fear from playing puff pastry.
But a Hartmann milestone such as his desperate and moving Concerto funèbre,
written in the dark autumn of 1939, then revised 20 years later, is a
much better match. To the adagio section – Hartmann loved adagios – she
brings passion without mawkishness; and the control wielded at high altitudes
is phenomenal. The Britten Sinfonia, led by Jacqueline Shave, make fluent
sounds too, amplified by Hyperion’s lively recording – close to the mike,
but never in your face.
Uniquely, the rest of the disc
rounds up Hartmann’s other music for violin: four substantial solo pieces,
Sonatas and Suites, written when he was 22. Grittier music this, for all
the Baroque dance forms and Neo-Classical pose. Sometimes the pose gets
shattered by spunky fugues, folk fiddling or surprising spurts of acid.
Slippery fingering or a pusillanimous tone would be death in these testing
works. Ibragimova is marvellously sturdy and exact, especially when making
perilous leaps from exposed places.
And she plays with such commitment
and feeling; no-one should play Hartmann out of duty. As for her next
disc, the doors are wide open. But whatever Ibragimova plays, it’ll be
worth hearing.
'****' from
Geoff Brown
The Times,
31 August 2007
Editor's Choice in Gramophone
'Hartmann's
complete music for solo violin performed with panache'
It
is such an obvious idea to combine Hartmann's Concerto funebre
(1939, rev 1959) with the four unaccompanied works from 1927
that I am surprised no company has thought of it before now. The Suites
and Sonatas are not well known, not even being performed until the mid-1980s,
although Ingolf Turban's Claves recording appeared in 1995. Hartmann composed
them while still a student with his mature style some years away, yet
their muscularity, contrapuntal and harmonic élan and the sense of self-belief
they exude show them to be products of a formidable, free-thinking creator.
Ibragimova proves an ideal exponent, her tempi freer and more elastic
(and mostly quicker) than Turban's. His more rigid approach gives him
an occasional edge, for instance in the First Suite's Canon or the opening
Toccata of Sonata No 1, but Ibragimova's greater fluency and flexibility
pay greater dividends time and again, as in the First Suite's central
Rondo or concluding Ciaconna or the Second Suite's second span, Fliessend.
Hyperion's natural sound-picture is also preferable to Claves' rather
close-miked recording.
Hard
on the heels of Orfeo's marvellous mid-price issue of Schneiderhan's gripping
performance of the Concerto funebre , Ibragimova's fiercely
clear-eyed account - alive to the music's expressive demands as well as
its dynamic markings (some of which Schneiderhan and Gertler are less
scrupulous with) - faces stiff competition but need not fear comparison
with any of the dozen or so rival accounts. Her technique is formidable
to say the least and if I still marginally prefer Faust, Ibragimova is
on her shoulder having surpassed Zehetmair, although Hyperion's couplings
and recording quality, to say nothing of the excellent Britten Sinfonia,
deserve a share in the plaudits. Recommended.
Guy
Rickards
Gramophone
Magazine
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