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BIS-2489
Originally recorded in February 2023
Classical
Chamber
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About
Saint-Saëns's chamber music broke new ground in France at a time when public taste tended to favour opera and opéra-comique. His first Sonata for violin and piano, one of the earliest composed in France, is a masterpiece of boundless beauty. Its emotional impact and its highly poetic content are served by the composer’s perfect mastery of formal architecture. It has also been proposed as the model for the ‘Vinteuil Sonata’ which runs through Marcel Proust's novel cycle ‘In Search of Lost Time’. The second Sonata, composed in Egypt, is very different from its predecessor: more serious, classical, and intimate. While the writing is more melodic, the composer prophesied that the sonata would not be understood “until the eighth hearing”. These two masterpieces are complemented by the Fantaisie for violin and harp, a virtuoso work in which the use of the harp rather than the piano produced a delicate, refined, even magical sound reminiscent at times of Fauré and Debussy, and by the charming Berceuse, one of Saint-Saëns’ best-known miniatures. Originally for violin and piano, it is performed here in an arrangement for violin and harp that, again, emphasizes the subtleties of Saint-Saëns’ writing.
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Reviews
Sound 9 Libretto 9 Repertoire 8 Interpretation 7.5
***** Coup de cœur
“… Cecilia Zilliacus is an excellent musician and so is Christian Ihle Hadland, who plays like an equal partner and not a mere accompanist. This is one of the best recordings of Sonata 1 that I have heard. She plays with drive and breadth of tone color, and her quiet passages are just as riveting as her loud passages…”
Chamber Choice
Performance ***** Recording *****
“… With everything captured in superb sound this is a joy from start to finish.”
“Plenty of pleasure to be found in violin sonatas by a French master.”
“This excellent new disc from BIS is a timely reminder about what a fine and wide-ranging composer Camille Saint-Saëns was… a wholly enjoyable and very attractive programme performed and recorded with great skill and sensitivity…”
Editor’s Choice – Chamber Section
“…The much-loved Bercause is here offered as a harp transcription by Fitspatrick himself. It is a lovely combination, with textures in turn dramatic and refreshing. The harp’s role moves between beautifully supporting and scintillating, and the violin offers some earnest speech-like lyrical moments … it’s a beautiful and really effective sound world…”
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