In the early years of the 20th century, whilst Arnold Schoenberg founded the Second Viennese School, a movement that would revolutionise a part of Western music, Bartók, Enesco, and Janácek affirmed their musical identities by exploring their countries’ histories and the roots of their respective origins.
Fifteen years before Bartók and Kodály began ‘harvesting’ folk music, Janácek was collecting thousands of Moravian folksongs in Hukvaldy, his native village, and the surrounding area. Bartók’s approach to folk music was a methodical one, and he and Kodály collected folk melodies as a team. As for Enesco, the title of his sonata, “In the character of Romanian folk music”, speaks for itself, whilst Janácek created a singular musical universe which does not belong to any particular school. The same cannot be said of Bartók, Szymanowski and Enesco, who were open to a wide variety of influences. For Szymanowski, the works of Austrian and German romanticists such as Chopin, Hindemith and Stravinsky provided inspiration, while Beethoven and Bach influenced Bartók. Enesco’s lyricism, on the other hand, can be traced back to Brahms, Richard Strauss and the vivid colours of French music.
David Grimal was born in 1973 in Paris and started to play the violin at the age of five. He won First Prize in violin and chamber music at the Paris Conservatory in 1993. Afterwards he did his postgraduate studies with Regis Pasquier, and later studied with Shlomo Mintz, and Isaac Stern. More recently he won the European Community and the European Radio Union Prizes in 1996, and received the Crédit National Fellowship Award. He was also honoured as the Classical discovery of the MIDEM 1997. He has performed as a soloist, amongst others with the English Chamber Orchestra, the Moscow Virtuosi, the Stockholm Chamber Orchestra, the Warsaw Symphony, the Bavarian Chamber Orchestra, I Musici di Padova, and the Paris Conservatory Orchestra.
“David Grimal and Georges Pludermacher deliver an absolutely inspired interpretation of Janácek's Violin Sonata. Responding with vivid characterisation to the cut and thrust of its instrumental dialogue, they turn the work into a kind of psychodrama in which violin and piano seem engaged on an increasingly desperate battle of wills. After this intensity, the languor and exoticism of Szymanowski's Myths provides much needed contrast. Once again Grimal and Pludermacher provide a marvellous interpretation revelling in the music's harmonies and sensuous textures. All in all... this is a wonderful disc that promises playing of great musical insight.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2009 *****
“Here are four haunting masterpieces: the Czech Janacek’s Sonata, the Pole Szymanowski’s Myths, the Romanian Enescu’s Sonata No3 and the Hungarian Bartok’s First Rhapsody. The violinist Grimal’s searching sweetness of tone and incorporation of gypsy wildness are captivating. The pianist Pludermacher’s playing is intensely thoughtful and forward without being overbalancing.” Sunday Times, 5th July 2009 ***
