Various Composers - 'Le Violon Vagabond' Violin Encores [Mourja/Gous]

This is an excellent Violin & Piano compilation, mainly for the fact it goes beyond the usual, into some strange territory at times, Mourja / Gous give us some excellent interpretations, i guess for some of these pieces, this probably represents the only disc that has them, plus this is a diverse disc as well, covering lots of different bases, Harmonia Mundi are an exciting innovative label.

Graf Mourja is Russian, this disc came out in 2002, the front cover painting is by Marc Chagall entitled Der Geigenspieler [The Fiddle Player], i like Chagall, his paintings have a dream / nightmare type of quality to them, on the back inlay, the tracks are organised into alphabetical order, rather than in number order, strange that!, so i rubbed on some red transfers to make things clearer.

On this listening tracks 1, 10 & 12 were the very best, and i would like to talk about these three,
1 Frolov / Piece Piece In The Blues Style [3:42] - Igor Frolov is Russian, composes very much in the style of Gershwin, with sighing and crying in the opening bars, and yet it shows you what can be done with the violin, which also includes pizzicato [1:07-1:15], getting stronger and stronger, and also the piano gets involved in some strong up and down the keyboard playing [2:12-2:33], a nice Bluesy piece.
10 Kroll / Banjo & Fiddle [2:45] - William Kroll was American, this is his celebrated piece, once you get to know it you'll fall in love with it, it's a lovely piece, as the title suggests, the violin uses pizzicato effects which mimic the banjo, it's only a short piece, but it's packed full of incident, starting with staccato twangings, and chop and changing with legato bowings, it's a beautiful idea, in the middle is a central section [0:50-1:52], which is much more lyrical, a waltzy serenade, with some brilliant playing, of course the exuberant opening returns [1:52+], to dazzle to the end, with high treble playing, and ending in some pizzicato twangs!.
12 Sarasate / Carmen Fantasy [13:04] - Pablo De Sarasate was Spanish, his Carmen Fantasy of course comes from themes from Bizet's Opera, a tour de force piece which goes all over the place, basically in six sections and a finale to end it off, it's the longest piece on the album by far, and really it has too many wonderful moments to speak of, section one is a brilliant Fantasia, full of flair and dance rhythms, i like the way the violin has a introductory pizzicato solo, followed by some very high tessitura treble whistlings [1:59-2:22], in section three there's sad treble cryings [4:34-4:57], and later a more complex version of the same [5:37-6:04], with some choice pizzicato at the end, the piece has a tendency to get more and more complex, and highly virtuosic at the end, by the ten minute mark the whole thing's starting to go out of control, furious bowing [10:37+], highly lyrical [11:31+], delving into squeaks almost [11:57+], berserk playing [12:29+], getting more and more frantic, it's bewildering, it must be a nightmare to learn!, but it's a dream to listen to!.

Various Composers - Popular Violin Encores [Chang/Abramovich] 

First of all, just a word about the cover, i didn't like the original cover that this came with, so i cut a picture from the front cover of a magazine [BBC Music Magazine - February 2004], rubbed some transfer lettering on it, and hey presto!, a really nice cover [it was originally called 'Simply Sarah'], but it's the music on the disc that's so good and varied, it's one of those discs, that even though it has 14 different Composers on it, there still feels this idea that they all belong together, there's this coherence here.

Sarah Chang is of course a violin superstar now, she finally hit her thirties, and shrugged off the child prodigy, she actually made this album in 1996 when she was still 15, my self made booklet cover is a close-cropped photo of Sarah in a thoughtful pose.

Well i found this so inspirational, it's full of lots of my favourites, one Encore after another i was thrilled, my favourite tracks were 1-2, 6 & 11-12, here's a short summary of each piece,

1 Bazzini - Dance Of The Goblins, a piece of sheer virtuoso brilliance, very fast playing by Chang [0:37-0:41], nice whoops of high sharp singing notes, and pizzicato strums too [2:22-2:43], and impossibly high notes [3:49-4:01], with a stunning bravura finale to it.
2 Paganini - Cantibile, the opposite of the first piece, sweetly lyrical, inflamed and impassioned, it's probably my most favourite encore, the sweeping flow of the piece right from the start is so compelling, and the sheer intensity of feeling that she generates at its climax [1:00-1:29], just an achingly stunning piece. 
6 Dinicu - Hora Staccato, a lovely agitated piece, it has a gypsy feel to it, lots of fast bowing, 'wrong' out of tune notes [0:33-1:06], especially by the piano [1:26-1:37], it's really short at under 2 minutes, and the ending is so inspired, very much an anti-climax on a soft yet abrupt pizzicato note, and yet so perfectly ends the piece on a nice controversy.
11 Gluck - Melodie, another highly inspired lyrical piece, much like the earlier Paganini Cantibile, it's also known as 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits', this is a mournful lament, with superb aching and longing [0:53+], long legato lines, a nice singing tone from Chang, there's moments of pure regret [2:07+], it's sad but makes me happy!.
12 Kroll - Banjo and Fiddle, an upbeat piece, the key is in its title, it switches from pizzicato 'banjo' to bowing 'fiddle', constantly going back and forth, and it certainly has humour too [2:17-2:25], with what sounds like a nice laugh at the end.
This is one of the very best violin and piano encore discs that i own.