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A Retrospective Volume 7

Steven Staryk

A Retrospective Volume 7

Format: CD
Label: Centaur Records, Inc.
UPC: 0044747336626
Catnr: CRC 3366
Release date: 07 July 2017
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1 CD
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Label
Centaur Records, Inc.
UPC
0044747336626
Catalogue number
CRC 3366
Release date
07 July 2017
Album
Artist(s)
Composer(s)
EN

About the album

The Canadian violin virtuoso, author, and chamber musician Steven Staryk’s performing career has encompassed half a century. A child prodigy, he served as concertmaster of the Royal Philharmonic (where he was the youngest concertmaster appointment in history at 24), along with The Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Chicago Symphony, and the Toronto Symphony. In the early 1950s during the McCarthy era, Staryk was a part of the group coined the ‘Symphony of Six’, denied entry to the U.S. for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s tour. Volume 7 of this ongoing and welcome retrospective brings us live remastered recordings of Staryk’s sensitive and inquisitive playing with Schumann’s Concerto in D Minor, Walton’s Concerto and Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E Minor and provides more evidence that this retrospective is an overdue one.

Artist(s)

Steven Staryk

Dubbed 'King of Concertmasters,' Staryk has been concertmaster of the Royal Philharmonic, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, The Chicago Symphony, and The Toronto Symphony.
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Dubbed "King of Concertmasters," Staryk has been concertmaster of the Royal Philharmonic, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, The Chicago Symphony, and The Toronto Symphony.

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Mario Bernardi (conductor)

Pierre Hetu (conductor)

George Corwin (conductor)

Composer(s)

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing. Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in...
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Robert Schumann was a German composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.
Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Carnaval, Symphonic Studies, Kinderszenen, Kreisleriana, and the Fantasie in C are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.
In 1840, Schumann married Friedrich Wieck's daughter Clara, against the wishes of her father, following a long and acrimonious legal battle, which found in favour of Clara and Robert. Clara also composed music and had a considerable concert career as a pianist, the earnings from which, before her marriage, formed a substantial part of her father's fortune.
Schumann suffered from a mental disorder, first manifesting itself in 1833 as a severe melancholic depressive episode, which recurred several times alternating with phases of ‘exaltation’ and increasingly also delusional ideas of being poisoned or threatened with metallic items. After a suicide attempt in 1854, Schumann was admitted to a mental asylum, at his own request, in Endenich near Bonn. Diagnosed with "psychotic melancholia", Schumann died two years later in 1856 without having recovered from his mental illness.

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Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn is often compared to Mozart. Both of them were child prodigies, both had a talented sister and they both died at a young age. Mendelssohn, who as a child also painted wrote poetry, was born in small family which converted to christianity from judaism. As a composer he preferred looking back, rather than forward: his main examples were Bach, Handel and Mozart. It was Mendelssohn who retrieved Bach from oblivion and pushed for a revival of his music, which still lasts today. One century after its premier, Mendelsson performed the St Matthew Passion for the second...
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Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period.

Mendelssohn is often compared to Mozart. Both of them were child prodigies, both had a talented sister and they both died at a young age. Mendelssohn, who as a child also painted wrote poetry, was born in small family which converted to christianity from judaism. As a composer he preferred looking back, rather than forward: his main examples were Bach, Handel and Mozart. It was Mendelssohn who retrieved Bach from oblivion and pushed for a revival of his music, which still lasts today. One century after its premier, Mendelsson performed the St Matthew Passion for the second time ever, in 1829.

Three years, earlier, on his 17th, he had already composed his masterfully overture A midsummer night's dream op. 21, based on Shakespeare's play. Today, it is still considered as one of the absolute masterpieces in all of the orchestra reperoire. His Violin Concerto op. 64 belongs to the most beautiful works of the 19th century as well. During his travels through Europe, he wrote his brilliant Italian Symphony, Scottish Symphony and the overture The Hebrides.

Although Mendelssohn had a prosperous career, his weak physique made him emotionally vulnerable. The death of his favourite sister Fanny became fatal: Mendelssohn died in the same year, at the age of 38.


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William Walton

Sir William Walton, in full Sir William Turner Walton, (born March 29, 1902, Oldham, Lancashire, Eng.—died March 8, 1983, Ischia, Italy), English composer especially known for his orchestral music. His early work made him one of England’s most important composers between the time of Vaughan Williams and that of Benjamin Britten. Walton, the son of a choirmaster father and a vocalist mother, studied violin and piano desultorily as a boy and also sang, with somewhat better results, in his father’s choir. He taught himself composition, although he received advice from both Ernest Ansermet and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1912 he entered the University of Oxford, where he sang in the choir of Christ Church. He put in the requisite four years of study but failed by one examination (Responsonions) to win a bachelor of music degree....
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Sir William Walton, in full Sir William Turner Walton, (born March 29, 1902, Oldham, Lancashire, Eng.—died March 8, 1983, Ischia, Italy), English composer especially known for his orchestral music. His early work made him one of England’s most important composers between the time of Vaughan Williams and that of Benjamin Britten.

Walton, the son of a choirmaster father and a vocalist mother, studied violin and piano desultorily as a boy and also sang, with somewhat better results, in his father’s choir. He taught himself composition, although he received advice from both Ernest Ansermet and Ferruccio Busoni. In 1912 he entered the University of Oxford, where he sang in the choir of Christ Church. He put in the requisite four years of study but failed by one examination (Responsonions) to win a bachelor of music degree. At Oxford he had met the Sitwell brothers, Osbert and Sacheverell, by whom he was virtually adopted, and he spent most of the next decade traveling with them or living with them at Chelsea. During this period he composed Façade (1923)—a set of pieces for chamber ensemble, to accompany the Sitwells’ sister Edith in a recitation of her poetry—as well as Sinfonia Concertante for piano and orchestra (1928; revised 1943) and Portsmouth Point (1926), which established his reputation as an orchestral composer.

Walton was influenced by some of his older contemporaries, notably Edward Elgar, Igor Stravinsky, and Paul Hindemith. Hindemith was soloist in the first performance of one of Walton’s finest works, his Viola Concerto (1929). Walton also composed a number of scores for motion pictures, including Major Barbara (1941), Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1947), and Richard III (1954). His vocal music includes the oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast (1931) and the operas Troilus and Cressida (1954) and The Bear (one act; 1967). The composer received a knighthood in 1951.


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Press

Play album Play album
01.
Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: I In kraftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo
20:59
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
02.
Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: II Langsam
09:14
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
03.
Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23: III Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell
11:51
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
04.
Concerto: I Andante tranquillo
15:48
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
05.
Concerto: II Presto Capriccioso alla Napolitana
09:10
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
06.
Concerto: III Vivace
20:01
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
07.
Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64: I Allegro molto appassionato
19:05
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
08.
Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64: II Andante
13:40
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra
09.
Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64: III Allegro molto Vivace
09:01
(Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, William Walton) Steven Staryk, Steven Staryk, Toronto Festival Orchestra, University of Victoria Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra

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