Szymanowski: Mythes, Op. 30

“An exquisitely shaded performance of the Janacek Sonata sets up heady takes on Szymanowski's Mythes and the fizzing virtuosity of Lutoslawski's Partita.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2013 *****

“Best of this previously unpublished late-1950s Bucharest recital is Oistrakh's breathtaking account of Szymanowski's Myths. Despite poor piano sounds, the Franck Sonata and Ravel Tzigane are as compelling.” BBC Music Magazine, February 2009 *****

“Here we have a fabulous unpublished programme that not only offers us new David Oistrakh repertoire but, in the case of the works we do already have from him, delivers performances that are sufficiently distinctive to warrant the duplication.
Take César Franck's Sonata, where Oistrakh's vibrato is more expressively intense than it often is on disc and where Vladimir Yampolsky transcends his familiar 'accompanist' role to assert an individual musical personality with playing that in its freedom and grandeur at times reminded me of Cortot, no less. Ravel's Tzigane is another winner – witty, spontaneous, incisive in its attack and, near the end, dangerously fast.
Other available Oistrakh Tziganes also deliver, musically speaking, but none sounds quite so thrillingly off the cuff.
And then there are the newcomers to Oistrakh's discography, all of them fine works. The Szymanowski Myths 'Narcissus' and 'Dryads and Pan' extend the experience we already have of Oistrakh in the opening 'Fountain of Arethusa' with seductive tone production, filigree passagework and a sense of play that perfectly matches Szymanowski's fantastical imagination. The late and rather discursive Schumann Fantasy in C, presented here with Fritz Kreisler's rich piano reduction, is a true tour de force, bittersweet one moment, boldly virtuoso the next and graced by a uniquely rounded musical sensibility that left the world the day David Oistrakh died.
Happily we still have the records, with this 1958 Bucharest recital being one of the finest of all. The sound is fairly good, the balance variable but never skewed. Utterly unmissable.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Don't miss this fabulous rarity - a genuinely unpublished recital from '58. The Szymanowski Myths "Narcissus" and "Dryads and Pan" extend the experience we already have of Oistrakh in the opening "Fountain of Arethusa" with seductive tone production, filigree passagework and a sense of play that perfectly matches Szymanowski's fantastical imagination. Utterly unmissable...” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009

“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 ***

“…this is a performance that shows Ibragimova's art at her remarkable best; at one moment poised, the next playing with abandon, she is one of the most expressive violinists around. The beguiling Three Paganini Caprices and with variations on that tune (composed 16 years before Rachmaninov's treatment), and give both players a chance for virtuosic display.” BBC Music Magazine, June 2009 *****

“Alina Ibragimova has become Hyperion's violinist of choice for sensual-esoteric 20th-century repertoire, and she and the super-sensitive Tiberghien make a winning combination… All in all, this repertoire should be high on the priority list for all those interested in 20th-century violin music, and it's not easy to imagine a stronger case being made for it than here.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2009

“Here, Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien produce beautifully characterised accounts, whether in the veiled contours of the Nocturne and the explosion of rhythmic energy that follows it in the Tarantella, or in the refined exoticism of Mythes, with its strange mixture of classical evocation and sensuous indulgence.” The Guardian, 29th May 2009 ****

“Alina Ibragimova wields her intoxicating violin with Cedric Tiberghien’s dappled piano in the febrile splendour of the Polish master Szymanowski. Just when you’re ready to faint after the early Violin Sonata, his Three Paganini Caprices arrive, dazzling us with Ibragimova’s light touch and the duo’s wonderful ability to move as one. More characteristic is Mythes — music of mysterious portent and idiosyncratic beauty.” The Times, 9th May 2009 ****

“We are living in a Second Golden Age of violinists, but even in the context of Hilary Hahn, Leila Josefowitz and Julia Fischer, Alina Ibragimova is an astonishing talent … technically the playing is superb. Intonation is exceptional, and Ibragimova’s timbral range—from the coarse to the silken, from the richly throbbing to the chastely disembodied—seems unlimited. The music is studded with challenges … she tosses it all off with self-confident authority … this is a major release” International Record Review

“What is immediately striking about Ibragimova's playing is her formidable technique...Tiberghien, a concert soloist in his own right, accompanies Ibragimova in an intuitive and expressive reading of both the music and the required relationship between the instruments.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 17th June 2009

“Mayuko Kamio, born in Osaka, Japan, but who studied also in the USA, won the 1998 Menuhin International Competition. She was the youngest artist to win this award – performing with Menuhin directing – and went on to win the gold medal in the 13th International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. She plays a 1727 Stradivarius once owned by Joachim and creates with it a remarkable range of vividly glowing timbre, playing with infinite subtlety of colour and phrasing. Moreover, she has planned this ambitious recital with skill, offering six shorter concertante works which are beautifully balanced as a whole, with the gentle charm and melancholy of the two Tchaikovsky pieces ideally placed to set off against their companions. She closes the Méditation exquisitely so that the sensuous rapture of the Chausson Poème follows on perfectly to make the rich musical highlight of the programme, helped by the lovely playing of her excellent partner pianist, Vadim Gladkov.
Szymanowski's shimmering Mythes make for another sensuous peak of feeling, full of exotic, lyrical fervour, the finale 'Dryads and Pan' pictorially quite riveting. How clever, too, not to end the recital with Waxman's sparkling CarmenFantasy but to open with it, and immediately show her ability to catch the individual vocal quality of each of Bizet's indelibly folksy tunes.
Then she offers Stravinsky's vigorously genial Pulcinella arrangement for her finale, another stream of rhythmically catchy melody that violinist and pianist share with gusto. Excellent recording makes this a debut not to be missed.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Mayuko Kamio… plays a 1727 Stradivarius once owned by Joachim and creates with it a remarkable range of vividly glowing timbre, playing with infinite subtlety of colour and phrasing. She closes the Méditation exquisitely so that the sensuous rapture of the Chausson Poème follows on perfectly to make the rich musical highlight of the programme, helped by the lovely playing of her excellent partner pianist, Vadim Gladkov.” Gramophone Magazine, February 2009