Octo_Russ

Various Composers - 'Liebesleid' Violin Encores [Okumura/ Eguchi] 

I bought this disc on a Japanese website, it was one of the many phases in my life where i checked out the Classical talent that resided in other countries, and Asian countries have all this hidden talent that has not hit western shores, not every Uchida and Midori is known over here, and some of these Artists have some truly excellent discs, you can pick up the odd disc on Ebay, but most are unavailable, or worse just completely unknown here in the west, we're still far from a global economy.

Ai Okumura is a Japanese Violinist, the booklet is mostly in Japanese, so i can't really glean any information from it, and the Internet is sparse on information, this recording was made in 2005, i was first attracted to this disc because of of the booklet cover, a very simple idea [photography by Shuji Tonoki], a really stunning upper body shot of Ai Okumura with her violin, shot on a light background, i really like her fringe!, lovely skin tones and hair colour.

This was another disc i listened to on the way to Church, and i actually listened to it without a track listing in mind, so i had to guess what the compositions were, and who the Composer was, this was actually a nice exercise, for many of these tunes i know well, but i just couldn't put my finger on a name for the piece, it's surprising how well we know music, but unlike in a Pop song where the words give the name away, a piece of Classical music can be on 'the tip of our tongue', the music was so beautiful, i just wanted to bask in the sounds, and not worry about who composed it, or why, or what it was even called.

Of all these pieces i played, i was touched by all of the tracks in some way or another, i think the recital is well chosen, with the intention of stirring up feelings of love, longing, and loss, for me the best two tracks were 2 & 7, with track 7 Apres Un Reve [After A Dream] by Faure, as the one that really plucked a heartstring, it's a sad song, in the original the story is of a person, who during sleep sees their dead lover, and there's a desire to follow them beyond the grave, but in the morning they awake, and wish they could go back to eternal sleep again, it's only a short track of 2:47, but it's packed full of such a good tune, i like the way the piano starts off with a gently tolling bell figure [0:00], and the violin comes in with such a melancholy sadness [0:04], the piano has a short little 'outburst' of tension in its bell ringing inbetween the two verses [0:50], and the violin starts up the second verse with a higher tessitura pleading [0:54], the intensity is well caught by Okumura, and some really nice sad crying out by the violin [1:37], like a person has to mourn someones passing all over again in the morning, the intensity is heightened by Eguchi's consistency of bell ringing, it gets on your nerves, but in a lovely way, and at the end the bell ringing dies in the bass, very heartwrenching.

Here's Janine Jansen playing 'Apres Un Reve' by Faure on YouTube.