Various Composers - Violin Showpieces [Bell/Litton-Royal Philharmonic Orchestra] Here's a lovely selection of shorter pieces for violin and orchestra, playing from 5 minutes to 17 minutes, but most around the 10 minute mark, and by six different Composers, a nice variety of pieces, if there's one gripe with the disc, it's that a seventh piece could have been added with no trouble.
Joshua Bell is an American Violinist, born in 1967, and is now 43, not the boy wonder anymore, he made this recording in 1991 when he was 23, the front booklet picture shows a black and white of Joshua Bell [photo by Dan Winters].
All these pieces are wonderful, each giving off their own respective flavour, the piece that i really swooned over was Massenet's meditation, it's the shortest piece on the disc [5:12], it was composed as an Intermezzo in the Opera Thais, it's so gentle and sweet [many would say syrupy], very romantic, passionate and lyrical, the harp features quite prominently throughout, it holds the opening strumming, very effective, and the violin plays high and endearing [0:09], it's almost a duet to begin with, as the orchestra is very quiet, the music swells as the orchestral strings play with more passion [1:30], and the solo violin responds likewise [1:51],
Here's Sarah Chang playing the Meditation by Massenet on YouTube.
