The Unreleased Berlin Studio Recordings by Henryk Szeryng

Henryk Szeryng

The Unreleased Berlin Studio Recordings

Price: € 22.95
Format: CD
Label: The Lost Recordings
UPC: 0196587027421
Catnr: TLR 2203040
Release date: 29 April 2022
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Label
The Lost Recordings

UPC
0196587027421

Catalogue number
TLR 2203040

Release date
29 April 2022

"Even if a different style is preferred today, it is still worthwhile to study him. "

Pizzicato, 01-5-2022

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Artist(s)

Composer(s)

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About the album

Henryk Szeryng: "Johann Sebastian Bach’s work is a Bible. Bach is the ultimate goal; this is where everything starts and everything ends. His music brings you closer to your own spirit," What could more eloquently express the violinist’s relationship with Bach, developed from an early age? Szeryng keep up his intimate association of Bach throughout his life. Szeryng’s deft finger work brings out the full brilliance of the Partita’s clarity and joy. His energy, his attacks, his remarkably precise bowing and generous timbre once more bear testimony to the depth and intensity of his lifelong attachment to Bach.

Throughout the innumerable meanderings of this Sonata for Violin and Piano in which Franck breathes new life into the genre, Henryk Szeryng has wrought a miracle. With his natural, dynamic interpretation, the warmth of his emotion-filled timbre, and the ringing clarity of his articulation and intonations, he does perfect justice to a work that is constantly balancing between sensual melodies and formal experimentation.

Henryk Szeryng masters the most demanding technical difficulties while rendering the subtlest effects of Ravel’s writing. His generous timbre and pure phrasing, which have led some to compare him to “pure essence of rose”, are superb in this highlight of the repertoire. Ravel, entranced by the flights of tzigane music, has bequeathed us one of his most captivating works.
Szeryng’s performance makes his intimacy with Beethoven manifest. The energy of his interpretation of the sonata nevertheless captures the finest details of the drama of the works.

Deze dubbel-cd is de eerste uitgave ooit, van concerten van de begenadigde Poolse violist Henryk Szeryng, opgenomen in de Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg-studio in Berlijn, in de jaren 1962/1963. In die tijd was Szeryng op zijn hoogtepunt als het gaat om zijn technische en intellectuele kwaliteiten. Alle stukken komen van de originele Berlijnse radiobanden en zijn geremasterd. Het was een uniek, twee jaar durend, restauratieproces, maar het resultaat mag er zijn. De, door Szeryng virtuoos gespeelde, werken van Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Maurice Ravel en Ludwig van Beethoven klinken magnifiek.

Henryk Szeryng: "Het werk van Johann Sebastian Bach is een Bijbel. Bach is het ultieme doel; hier begint en eindigt alles. Zijn muziek brengt je dichter bij je eigen geest." Hoe kun je de relatie die de violist van jongs af aan met Bach had, beter uitdrukken dan zo? Szeryng blijft zijn innige verbondenheid met het werk van Bach zijn hele leven behouden. Szeryngs behendige vingerwerk brengt de schitterende helderheid en vreugde van de partita’s van Bach tot volle bloei. De energie van de violist, zijn opmerkelijk precieze strijktechniek en vorstelijk timbre getuigen eens te meer van de diepte en intensiteit van zijn levenslange gehechtheid aan Bach.

Henryk Szeryng heeft een wonder verricht bij het spelen van de meanderende Sonate voor viool en piano, waarmee César Franck het genre nieuw leven inblaast. Met zijn natuurlijke, dynamische interpretatie, de warmte van zijn met emoties doorspekte timbre en de klinkende helderheid van zijn articulatie en intonaties, doet de violist volkomen recht aan een werk dat voortdurend balanceert tussen sensuele melodieën en formele experimenten.

Szeryng beheerst de meest veeleisende technische vaardigheden, die nodig zijn om de subtiele effecten van Ravels muziek weer te geven. Het royale timbre en de zuivere frasering van de violist zijn geweldig in een van de boeiendste werken uit het repertoire dat Ravel, betoverd door de Tzigane Muziek, ons heeft nagelaten.

De interpretatie van Szeryng van de sonates van Beethoven maakt duidelijk hoe vertrouwd hij is met deze componist. Zelfs de kleinste details van de dramatiek in de muziek weet hij te vangen.

Henryk Szeryng: "Das Werk von Johann Sebastian Bach ist eine Bibel. Bach ist das ultimative Ziel, hier beginnt alles und hier endet alles. Seine Musik bringt dich deinem eigenen Geist näher." Wie könnte man die Beziehung des Geigers zu Bach, die er von Kindesbeinen an entwickelt hat, besser ausdrücken? Szeryng hat seine innige Beziehung zu Bach sein ganzes Leben lang aufrechterhalten. Szeryngs geschickte Fingerarbeit bringt die Klarheit und Freude der Partita voll zur Geltung. Seine Energie, seine Angriffe, seine bemerkenswert präzise Bogenführung und sein großzügiges Timbre zeugen einmal mehr von der Tiefe und Intensität seiner lebenslangen Verbundenheit mit Bach.

In den unzähligen Windungen dieser Sonate für Violine und Klavier, in der Franck der Gattung neues Leben einhaucht, hat Henryk Szeryng ein Wunder vollbracht. Mit seiner natürlichen, dynamischen Interpretation, der Wärme seines emotionsgeladenen Timbres und der klingenden Klarheit seiner Artikulation und Intonation wird er einem Werk, das ständig zwischen sinnlichen Melodien und formalen Experimenten balanciert, perfekt gerecht.

Henryk Szeryng meistert die anspruchsvollsten technischen Schwierigkeiten, während er die subtilsten Effekte von Ravels Werk wiedergibt. Sein großzügiges Timbre und seine reine Phrasierung, die manche dazu veranlasst haben, ihn mit der "reinen Essenz der Rose" zu vergleichen, sind in diesem Höhepunkt des Repertoires hervorragend. Ravel, der von den Höhenflügen der Tzigane-Musik hingerissen war, hat uns eines seiner fesselndsten Werke vermacht.
In Szeryngs Interpretation wird seine Vertrautheit mit Beethoven deutlich. Die Energie seiner Interpretation der Sonate fängt dennoch die feinsten Details der Dramatik des Werks ein.

Artist(s)

Henryk Szeryng (violin)

Günther Ludwig (piano)

Marinus Flipse (piano)

Composer(s)

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include nine symphonies, five piano concertos, one violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, his great Mass the Missa solemnis, and one opera, Fidelio. Together with Mozart and Haydn, he was part of the First Viennese School. Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire, Beethoven displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and by composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 he moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn, and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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Maurice Ravel

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a French composer who is often associated with impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In the 1920s and 1930s Ravel was internationally regarded as France's greatest living composer.
Born to a music-loving family, Ravel attended France's premier music college, the Paris Conservatoire; he was not well regarded by its conservative establishment, whose biased treatment of him caused a scandal. After leaving the Conservatoire Ravel found his own way as a composer, developing a style of great clarity, incorporating elements of baroque, neoclassicism and, in his later works, jazz. He liked to experiment with musical form, as in his best-known work, Boléro (1928), in which repetition takes the place of development. He made some orchestral arrangements of other composers' music, of which his 1922 version of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is the best known.
As a slow and painstaking worker, Ravel composed fewer pieces than many of his contemporaries. Among his works to enter the repertoire are pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concertos, ballet music, two operas, and eight song cycles; he wrote no symphonies and only one religious work. Many of his works exist in two versions: a first, piano score and a later orchestration. Some of his piano music, such as Gaspard de la nuit (1908), is exceptionally difficult to play, and his complex orchestral works such as Daphnis et Chloé (1912) require skilful balance in performance.

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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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César Franck

César Franck was simultaneously a child prodigy and a late bloomer. His parents quickly discovered his enormous talent, but they were mostly interested in the money and fame that he might generate. Because of this, he was presented as a piano virtuoso, without a focus on composition. Unfortunately, his virtuoso career was less promising then they had hoped, and he started earning his money more as a teacher and organist. Composing stayed in the background, but in the mean time he did get some notable students, such as Henri Duparc. After a while, a sort of "Franck school" of students arose, albeit against his will, who affectionately called him ‘Pater seraphicus’. It was not until he was 50 before he started to receive some acclaim as a composer, and from his 52nd he started a very prolific period, lasting until his death at the age of 68.
Nowadays, Franck is mostly known for his instrumental music, peaking at the famous Violin Sonata in A. Besides this work,, his small collection of organ works was particularly influential.

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