Beethoven - Violin Sonata 5 [Nishizaki/ Jando]Takako Nishizaki is Japanese, she is now 66, she has recorded extensively for Naxos, in the early days of Naxos i bought quite a few of their discs as they were cheap, but i have come to learn that the true worth of a disc is, how many times is it worth re-hearing?, the more you listen to a disc, the more you have invested in it, and the more treasurable it becomes, with this criteria in mind, i now feel that many of my Naxos discs were false economy, and i purged a load from my collection, but this is one i have kept as it has become immensely treasurable, it now resides at No28 in my all time listening list.
Again i found the second movement Adagio very moving, the piano creates a gentle rocking rhythm in the bass, which at first the right hand treble plays the main melody over, but then the violin takes over this main melody [0:42-1:15], the piano returns to take control of the melody [2:15-2:47], this time embellished with all sorts of lovely extras, and again the violin comes in to take over [2:52-3:25], and produce wonderful soaring lines, Nishizaki has a nice sweet tone about her, and Jando is majestic, don't for one moment think that because it's a budget disc, that Naxos has shirked on personnel, violin and piano swap places out front, like some sort of Jazz tag duo, it's a lovely slow movement from the young Beethoven.
Here's Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich playing the Adagio slow movement on YouTube.
