Search - Vadim Gluzman, Angela Yoffe, Lera Auerbach :: Auerbach: 24 Preludes for Violin & Piano

A TRAVERSAL OF AURAL WONDER

Melvyn M. Sobel | Freeport (Long Island), New York | 07/30/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Lera Auerbach [b. 1973], pianist, composer, poet, is a protean artist of exceptional talent and vision. Having become familiar with her recordings on Lyric Records, and having heard some incredibly intrepid musicality there, this new BIS release of Lera's astonishing Twenty-four Preludes for Violin and Piano, Op. 46 [1999] doesn't surprise me. Frankly, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Wandering, like some elfin, mischievous wraith, through all major and minor tonalities, and using every resource available to the violin, Ms. Auerbach has conceived a fabulously spectral work, haunting in its ominous use of bleak lyricism, relentless in its hypnotic attraction, and thoroughly inventive in its somber mood and design. At nearly one hour, the Twenty-four Preludes rivet the listener with chiaroscuro strokes of brutal boldness and sudden, subtle, fantastically improbable moments of ghostly quietude. Dedicated to both violinist Gluzman and pianist Yoffe, who also premiered the work together, the Preludes are sophisticated late twentieth century excursions into realms of complex discord, perverse lullaby, existential malaise, and penetratingly distilled melody, all of which form a palpable whole of astonishing allure and frisson.The T'filah (Prayer) for Solo Violin [1996], also dedicated to Gluzman, is a rapt remembrance and memorial to the Holocaust. In this piece, as in the Postlude for Violin and Piano [1999], Auerbach shows a touching vulnerability and humanity, eschewing technical display and embracing a natural, unselfconscious poetry.Vadim Gluzman, a brilliant virtuoso, sustains all these works, in turn, with a fiery passion and an equally gentle compassion, and Angela Yoffe provides no less sympathetic support and understanding. Truly remarkable, as well, is the recording itself, supervised by Ms. Auerbach. BIS, already renown for sound quality on CD, gives us music reproduced with such clarity, fullness, warmth and presence that it simply beggars description and, simultaneously, does full justice to the composer's fearless originality.[Running time: 68:06]"

24 Preludes - A Modern Masterpiece

Music Connoisseur | 03/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This music is riveting and spellbinding. Violinists be warned! When you hear this recording, you will be compelled to learn this work immediately. Music-lovers...100 listenings won't be enough.... I couldn't say it better than the professional reviewers that have written about this CD. Following are a few excerpts from published reviews:



"This is the first commercial CD of her (Lera Auerbach) music, and I found it an absolute knockout. The 24 Preludes, written in 1999 and dedicated to the present performers, takes its formal cue from Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier," because it, too, is a major cycle of short pieces using all the major and minor tonalities. There are several ingenious aspects to it, beginning with the way each piece -- complete and satisfying unto itself -- evolves into the next to form a unified, mosaic-like structure nearly one hour long. This richly allusive music can be heard as a kind of opus summa of violin writing from the last several centuries. If you like Shostakovich and Schnittke, you'll like Auerbach; the former's dark, brooding intensity and the latter's sardonic irony loom large in her music. But her language is very much her own. She composes in big gestures that exploit extremes of dynamics, timbre, register, dissonance and consonance to powerfully dramatic effect."

--- John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune



".....Gluzman and Yoffe leap the technical hurdles fearlessly, turning in dynamic, emotionally harrowing accounts of music that deserves to be on every violinist's CD shelf and music stand."

--- James Reel, Strings Magazine



"This is a pretty impressive recording: The major entry is a set of 24 preludes (sequenced across the circle of fifths, in alternating major and relative minor keys) for violin and piano, the Op. 46 (1999) of Lera Auerbach, then 26, a composer from the Siberian region, but living in the United States since 1991. The cycle is given an absolutely stupendous performance by the contemporaneous husband-and-wife team of violinist Vadim Gluzman and pianist Angela Yoffe, for whom the work was written. Displaying a postmodern eclecticism, the short pieces-each averaging about 2 1/2 minutes-cover a broad expressive range from haunting sweetness, through a rustic, folklike charm, to abject terror. The writing for violin is similarly varied, drawing upon techniques both conventional and unusual...the performers, who play the pieces as if they were established masterpieces, lend the music a level of advocacy that would make most composers drool with envy. Further contributing to the impact of the presentation, the sound quality is full, rich, and spacious, but also transparently clear."

--- Walter Simmons, Fanfare Magazine"