The Dreams and Fables I Fashion (Elicia Silverstein)
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Luciano Berio, Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi (Mealli), Salvatore Sciarrino, Johann Sebastian Bach
Genre:
Instrumental
Label: Rubicon
Magazine Review Date: 12/2018
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 56
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: RCD1031
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Mystery (Rosary) Sonatas and Passacaglia, Movement: No. 10 in G minor: The Crucifixion |
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Composer
Elicia Silverstein, Violin Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Composer Mauro Valli, Cello Michele Pasotti, Theorbo |
Passacaglia for Violin |
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Composer
Elicia Silverstein, Violin Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber, Composer |
(6) Caprices, Movement: Capriccio No 2 |
Salvatore Sciarrino, Composer
Elicia Silverstein, Violin Salvatore Sciarrino, Composer |
(6) Sonatas per chiesa e camera, Movement: La Cesta, A minor |
Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi (Mealli), Composer
Elicia Silverstein, Violin Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi (Mealli), Composer Mauro Valli, Cello |
Sequenza VIII |
Luciano Berio, Composer
Elicia Silverstein, Violin Luciano Berio, Composer |
(3) Sonatas and 3 Partitas, Movement: Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV1004 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
Author: Charlotte Gardner
The programme itself is a full-blown scholarly effort exploring the philosophical, structural and technical connections between the progressive violinistic composers of the 17th century and the late 20th-century Italian avant-garde composers they in turn influenced: a proposition that on paper has all the air of a thesis title but which in Silverstein’s musical outworking – performed on pure gut strings – comes off as a highly emotionally intelligent piece of pure art. This is also one of those rare albums truly conceived as a whole listen from start to finish; for instance, from the piano ending of Biber’s Mystery Sonata Passacaglia comes the softly shimmering opening of Sciarrino’s Capriccio No 2, with the two further connected by the magically Impressionistic, wistfully ethereal approach she’s brought to both.
Scholarship has freed her to be different too because, while for Biber’s Mystery Sonata ‘The Crucifixion’ she is joined by theorboist Michelle Pasotti and cellist Mauro Valli, for Pandolfi Mealli’s Sonata No 2, La Cesta, she’s been able to cite a 17th-century basis for her more unusual decision to opt for cello accompaniment alone, with the greater freedom and intimacy that allows for.
Then, while Bach’s D minor Chaconne may be an eminently logical successor to Berio’s Sequenza VIII, it’s still a brave choice for a young artist’s debut recording (although Emmanuel Tjeknavorian was equally brave this year when he opened his own debut album with it – Sony Classical); Silverstein’s flowing, gossamer-weighted and vulnerable-toned reading, though, is both her own and entirely convincing. Whatever Silverstein does next, I’m already looking forward to it.
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