Saint-Saëns: Introduction & Rondo capriccioso, Op. 28

On his debut CD, the prize winning cellist, Valentin Radutiu performs not only standard works, but also works demonstrating his interest in new and unusual repertoire.

This compilation features James Ehnes' best musical moments available previously on this label.

Gernot Winischofer studied in Vienna, Salzburg and at the Moscow Conservatory. He is currently a professor at the Vienna Conservatory. The Spanish pianist Anna Ferrer is an international artist and has performed with many prestigious orchestras. Here they bring their talents to a programme with a Spanish theme.

Reissue Producer and Restoration Engineer: Mark Obert-Thorn

The recordings on this album come from the second part of Jascha Heifetz’s extraordinary career. Heifetz’s strong command of structure and attention to sensuous detail are evident in each of the recordings heard here, the music’s technical difficulties dispatched with consummate ease.

The Duo Intermezzo places strong emphasis on musical miniatures in their concert programming and on this CD performs small romances, lamentations and melodies as well as virtuoso pieces. All the pieces tell a dramatic, humorous or tragic short story in just a few minutes.

François-Xavier Roth records here his first disc with the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra of which he is now musical director. He recently stood in for an ailing Andre Previn with the LSO during the volcano crisis. “Chausson’s Poème has always had an extremely powerful emotional effect on me”, says Tedi Papavrami. “There is a painful sincerity in Chausson, which distinguishes him from other French composers of the period – with whom he shares the harmonic refinement. I am always amazed at his way of assimilating the Wagnerian heritage whilst composing music that is unquestionably French. It is a wrenching, contrasted work, going from the ethereal to bitterness by way of breathless rage. It was after having heard Poème élégiaque d’Ysäye that Chausson composed his Poème! Listening to it, the influence is obvious – the same colours, same key, same Franckist seriousness, and this orchestral version – the Liège Philharmonic must be one of the rare orchestras to have the parts (Ysaÿe was born in Liège) – seemed ideal to me for completing the second pole of the programme as a counterweight to Saint-Saëns.”

The works on this CD represent some of the finest for the violin to emerge from the French violin tradition – a tradition that stretches back some four centuries. From Louis XIII’s 24 Violins du roi of 1626, through Lully and Leclair in the 18th century, and Rode, Kreutzer, de Beriot, Lalo, Vieuxtemps and Saint-Saens in the 19th.

Lalo’s evergreen Symphonie Espagnole reflects his Spanish ancestry, and it is thought that he consulted the great Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate during the composition of the work. It is a clever blend of symphony and concerto, Spanish colour, French effervescence and Germanic structure. Vieuxtemps was a child prodigy, making his public debut at the age of 11 in 1831, and was compared to Paganini. He produced 7 violin concertos, and nos 4 and 5 have remained in the repertoire to this day. The 5th is innovative in dovetailing movements together – something Mendelssohn and Bruch would do later in their famous concertos. Saint-Saëns was another child prodigy, and a pianist of tremendous technique from an early age. He produced 5 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 2 cello concertos and 3 violin concertos and many other concertante works along with many operas a chamber works ‘I live in music as a fish lives in water ‘ he once said. Polished, fluent with a truly memorable gift for a great tune, his Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was written for the 19-year-old Sarasate in 1863.

‘Mintz plays the piece with fine panache: his treatment of the gorgeous, lilting secondary theme of the first movement is tenderly seductive, while the Scherzo dances with a delicious feathery weightlessness, its lyrical strain enticingly Carmenesque. The habanera rhythms of the Intermezzo are certainly touched with G string voluptuousness but, again, there is an element of restraint, which shows the true artist not overplaying his hand’ Gramophone March 1992

Michael Rabin, who died in 1972, was an American violinist of Romanian-Jewish descent. Rabin played in a bel canto style. He toured widely, playing in all the major cities of the U.S., Europe, South America and Australia.