Bloch, E: Suite for solo violin No. 2

“...as fine a version as we now have [of the Sacred Service], beautifully recorded. Rostropovich and Bernstein are highly flammable in Schelomo...The Academy of St Martin in the Fields playing the joyous First Concerto Grosso is an added bonus” Gramophone Magazine, June 2010

“Both composers are served extremely well on this beautifully recorded disc, Hagai Shaham and Arnon Erez in particular giving a totally convincing performance of Bloch's well-known Baal Shem. Although on the evidence of this disc Ben-Haïm emerges as a less individual creative force than Bloch, the concluding Improvisation and Dance, brilliantly dispatched by both artists, would perhaps make a welcome alternative to Ravel's much-played Tzigane.” BBC Music Magazine, March 2007 *****

“Bloch's two unaccompanied suites date from 1958, the year before his death; they combine a chromatic idiom with a strong sense of tonality.
Occasionally the music seems to lack individuality – the third movement of the First Suite is almost like pastiche Bach and its final cadence is academically predictable – but more often one's attention is caught and held by the expressive melodic writing and, in both suites, by a compelling sense of continuity. Shaham revels in Bloch's demanding yet imaginatively idiomatic violin writing. In the solo suites, as well as the more extravagantly emotional pieces with piano on Jewish themes, he enters wholeheartedly into the feeling of the music yet retains a measure of balance and restraint – the vibrato isn't exaggerated and a feeling of rhapsodic freedom is achieved without sacrificing natural flow.
Bloch's popularity has waned somewhat in recent decades, and the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897–1984) is even more poorly represented in the CD catalogue. His Solo Sonata, written for Yehudi Menuhin, is, however, a masterly work, not at all original in form and idiom, perhaps, but full of memorable ideas.
Shaham's playing of the central Lento e sotto voce is stunningly beautiful. And the Improvisationand Dance, a folk-style showpiece after the manner of the Bartók rhapsodies, inspires both Shaham and Erez to brilliant feats of virtuosity.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Hagai Shaham possesses the ideal kind of silver-toned, narrow-vibratoed purity to make these occasionally melodramatic pieces ring true. Rather than fall back on a well-upholstered, opulent sound, he streamlines his tone, adding a special kind of intensity to Bloch’s soaring climaxes. Shaham strikes just the right balance between interpretative cool and swashbuckling bravado in Baal Shem … the recording is excellent throughout’” The Strad