Daniel Weissmann & Peter Petrov – The Romantic Viola II (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:11:10 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuga Libera
Daniel Weissmann, Managing Director of the Liège Royal Philharmonic, is also a violist. Following an initial album released by Fuga Libera (2018) and chiefly devoted to German music, he continues his exploration of the chamber repertory for viola with this new album, here in partnership with the pianist Peter Petrov. The programme explores the French Romantic repertory, in a worldpremiere recording of the British musicologist Hugh Macdonald’s remarkable and formidably difficult arrangement for viola and piano of Berlioz’s Harold en Italie. The album is completed by ‘fin-de-siècle’ pieces by Vierne, Chausson and Tournemire (all three students of César Franck), written between 1894 and 1897, which embrace the full expressive and melancholic potential of the instrument. – Fuga Libera
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Daniel Weissmann & Jean-Louis Delahaut – The Romantic Viola (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:12 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fuga Libera
While the alto as a soloist instrument made a timid first appearance at the end of the 18th century with Mozart, Stamitz and Dittersdorf, the Romantic era left it behind for the most part, despite Berlioz’ phenomenal Harold en Italie with alto solo; it was only during the last third of the 19th century that a few composers renewed their interest in this instrument as a soloist. Brahms of course, but also less-renowned musicians like those played here by violist Daniel Weissmann and pianist Jean-Louis Delahaut: Carl Reinecke, Henri Vieuxtemps, Robert Fuchs, and even Liszt in a most unique work for alto and piano, a Romance oubliée that closes the album like a melancholic goodbye. You’ll probably be surprised by this Liszt style, as here the composer rolls out an ample melody with most discrete accompaniments. At the end of the track, it’s worth listening to the alto arpeggios that Berlioz included in his Harold, undoubtedly the last tribute of old Liszt to his friend who had passed away twelve years earlier. More virtuosic, the works of Reinecke, Vieuxtemps and Fuchs demonstrate the growing role of the alto in the soloist repertoire, a trend that would eventually be brought in the open at the start of the 20th century with the works of Bartók, Hindemith, Walton, Milhaud, Martinů, Zimmermann, Berio, Ligeti, Kurtág… and the list is still growing to this day. However it is unfortunate that Romanticism didn’t consider the richness of this instrument, too often turning its attention to solo piano…
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