Sarasate: Danza Española No. 1: Malagueña, Op. 21, No. 1

Violinist Rudens Turku presents his fifth album for Avie, Sweet Remembrance, a personal selection of virtuoso miniatures and encores.

Since making his recording debut for Avie in 2005 with the sonatas of Brahms, Franck and Schumann (AV2080), Albanian-born, Munich-resident violinist Rudens Turku has amassed a devoted following and fan base for his effortless virtuosity and innate musicianship.

Following albums devoted to solo works, duos, and concertos, Rudens returns with a personal selection of miniatures and encores for violin and piano. Sweet Remembrance – the subtitle of Jascha Heifetz’s arrangement of Mendelssohn’s Song without Words - ranges from the romantic Salut d’amour by Elgar, Schön Rosmarin by Kreisler and Massenet’s Meditation from Thaïs, to the energetic Scherzo from Brahms’ F-A-E Sonata and Shostakovich’s exhilarating Preludium. Interspersed with miniature masterpieces by great violinist-composers such as Paganini, Sarasate, Kreisler and Wienawski, the album boldly concludes with Ysaÿe’s commanding Second Sonata, itself written in remembrance of another great violinist, Jacques Thibaud.

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.

Michael Rabin was a virtuoso of the highest order, one of the most talented violinists of the 20th century. A child prodigy, he performed in public for the first time aged only eleven. From the early 1950s, Rabin gave concerts across the globe and made numerous recordings, including the complete Paganini Caprices. He worked himself into a state of exhaustion, going through a crisis in the 1960s which temporarily compromised his playing. However, Rabin managed to recover and return to his former glory.These recordings, made by the RIAS and released here for the first time, document his comeback in an impressive manner: the live recording of Max Bruch's First Violin Concerto, made in the Berlin Philharmonie, is of particular interest as Rabin never made an LP recording of it. In the short virtuoso pieces, the violinist - who died at a tragically young age - demonstrates himself to have been a romantic virtuoso par excellence: he displays a sensuous tone and an enthralling technique.