Michael Barenboim & Natalia Pegarkova-Barenboim – Felix Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte (Arr. for Violin and Piano by Ferdinand David) (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:19:16 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
Violinist Michael Barenboim makes his second appearance on Linn, this time with pianist and partner Natalia Pegarkova-Barenboim. Together they have recorded some of Mendelssohn’s beloved Songs without Words. Beginning their life as a musical game between Mendelssohn and his older sister Fanny Hensel, these songs were arranged into piano pieces to pass the time during their childhood. The album showcases a selection arranged for violin by violinist and composer Ferdinand David. Hardly known today, David was to become a close friend of Felix and the dedicatee of his famous Violin Concerto Op. 64. These arrangements always remain true to Mendelssohn’s musical aesthetic, and their intimate character calls for a closely shared musicianship, undoubtedly a distinctive quality which the duo has aplenty.
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Michael Barenboim, Alessandro Crudele, Philharmonia Orchestra – Britten & Elgar: Sea Interludes, Violin Concerto (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:07:50 minutes | 1,10 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Linn Records
After an acclaimed Respighi recording, Alessandro Crudele makes his second appearance on Linn, this time teaming up with violinist Michael Barenboim who makes his Linn debut, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. The programme offers a glimpse of two contrasting, yet defining figures of British music. Depicting an outsider within an isolated community – very much reflecting Britten’s situation at the time of its composition – Peter Grimes remains his most performed opera. Following its success, Britten extracted four ‘interludes’: brilliantly orchestrated portraits of the North Sea, performed here with Crudele’s distinctive mastery of orchestral colours. The self-taught Elgar was somewhat reluctant to compose a concerto for violin, but after meeting the great Fritz Kreisler he came to create ‘an immortal work’, the Austrian violinist’s own words. Benefiting from recent live performances, the execution brings all the facets of the work to light and successfully blends the solo part with the orchestral accompaniment in a show of perfect symbiosis.
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Michael Barenboim, Daniel Barenboim & Pierre Boulez – Schoenberg: Violin & Piano Concerti (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 57:31 minutes | 589 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Music Group International
Dating from 2005 and 2012, these are the Vienna Philharmonic’s first recordings of two of Schoenberg’s works: the Piano Concerto with soloist Daniel Barenboim under Pierre Boulez and the extremely challenging Violin Concerto starring father and son: Michael Barenboim as soloist under the direction of his father Daniel. Even today the virtuosity of the Violin Concerto instils a sense of awe in many violinists; for a time Jascha Heifetz regarded the work as unplayable.
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Michael Barenboim – Sciarrino, Tartini, Berio & Paganini: Violin Works (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:13:29 minutes | 1,30 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Accentus Music
After his debut solo album with music by Bach, Bartók and Boulez, Michael Barenboim’s second album is also dedicated to works for solo violin and features compositions by Salvatore Sciarrino, Giuseppe Tartini, Luciano Berio, and Niccolò Paganini, thereby sketching a short history of Italian solo violin literature. The four works seem very heterogenous at first glance but what unites them is their rich technical and stylistic spectrum. The juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary music works creates an inimitable sound cosmos and makes the works by Tartini and Paganini sound incredibly modern alongside 20th-century music. Michael Barenboim creatively navigates the sometimes obsessive and diabolical elements of the works and creates an inspired and unique interpretation.
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Michael Barenboim – Beethoven: Violin Concerto (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 44:43 minutes | 473 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Barenboim makes it all sound easy, though, with performances spilling over with life and drama. Every work’s soul has been ignited and revealed, every second telling a story, all unmarred by a single glitch in intonation or articulation […] this is indisputably exciting playing across an indisputably effective programme.
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Michael Barenboim, Yulia Deyneka, Kian Soltani & Daniel Barenboim – Mozart: Piano Quartets (Live At Pierre Boulez Saal) (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:49 minutes | 1,19 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
When he wrote his two unique quartets for piano, violin, alto and cello, in 1785 and 1786 respectively—the era of The Marriage of Figaro—Mozart was brilliantly inaugurating a genre which, much later, would inspire others, and not the least: Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Dvořák and Fauré, Saint-Saëns and Chausson. Not the big crowd then, because it is true that the format causes balance problems, that Mozart has overcome with his usual mastery (the others too, be reassured). Because the risk and the temptation are huge to make it some kind of mini-concerto for piano with three string accompaniments, and the composer took great pain to avoid that: yes, he often sets the piano against the three strings, but the exchange remains balanced and never are the strings only there to only act as support. In this, Mozart is the true precursor. On piano, Daniel Barenboim has surrounded himself with three musicians coming from his famous East-West Divan Orchestra: his son Michael B. on violin, the Russian violist Yulia Deyneka and Persian cellist Kian Soltani, great soloists whose value hasn’t awaited the passing of years to blossom in the light of day. Let’s note that these recordings have been made in a public concert in March 2017.
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Daniel Barenboim & Kian Soltani & Michael Barenboim – Complete Mozart Trios (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 02:29:15 minutes | 1,54 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Deutsche Grammophon (DG)
Daniel Barenboim is no stranger to complete collections. Glutton that he is, he records them several times over, whether it’s Beethoven’s Sonatas, or as here, Mozart’s Trios (already recorded for EMI in 2006 with violinist Nicolai Znaider and cellist Kyril Zlotnikov). And so it’s not the immortal Amadeus that we are hearing so much as a portrait of Barenboim that ages with the years. The accomplished artists create a close dialogue, greedily following each other’s music. Amongst all these scores, can we detect an aesthetic vision? The scores follow one after the other, like at a family musical soirée, with a convivial, sweetish piano sound – likely a matter of sound quality rather than sherry consumption – in particular on the Piano Trio in B Flat Major, K.502, but also in the opening passages of the Allegro of the Piano Trio in E Major, K.542, whose dramatic dimension is somewhat lacking here. But at least the piano doesn’t overshadow the strings or upset the balance required in these tightly-wound, respected works. Mozart’s chamber music isn’t simple: the contrapunctual writing builds a delicate world whose poetry is flavoured by harmonies and chromatism. Daniel Barenboim has found some fitting partners. – Elsa Siffert
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