Shostakovich - Viola Sonata / Schnittke - Viola Concerto | Naive AMB168

Shostakovich - Viola Sonata / Schnittke - Viola Concerto

Label: Naive

Cat No: AMB168

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 29th September 2008

Contents

Artists

Antoine Tamestit (viola)
Markus Hadulla (piano)
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Dmitrij Kitajenko

Works

Schnittke, Alfred

Viola Concerto

Shostakovich, Dmitri

Violin Sonata, op.147

Artists

Antoine Tamestit (viola)
Markus Hadulla (piano)
Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Conductor

Dmitrij Kitajenko

About

Rising star of the viola, the exciting French player Antoine Tamestit, makes his second disc for Ambroisie/Naïve, with a pairing of two of the most significant works written for the instrument during the second half of the 20th century, Schnittke’s Viola Concerto and Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata. His first recording coupled Bach and Ligeti (Chaconne - AM111) and attracted high praise.

Alfred Schnittke wrote his Viola Concerto in 1985, the year that Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet Union, ended the Cold War and allowed Russians once again to enjoy the excitement of travel. The work was commissioned by the Russian violist Yuri Bashmet who gave the first performance a year later at the Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. Ten years earlier, in 1975, Dmitri Shostakovich knew he was dying when he wrote the Viola Sonata Op.147 and that it would be his last work. Sadly, Shostakovich did not live to hear his swansong in concert, but the dedicatee Fyodor Druzhinin performed it informally at Shostakovich’s house on what would have been the composer’s 69th birthday, 26 September.

Antoine Tamestit himself became enamoured of the rich, low tone of the viola as a ten-year-old. He found that the open C string, the same C with which both Schnittke’s Concerto and Shostakovich’s Sonata end, resonated warmly through his entire body and that with the end-button resting against his throat, he could feel the vibrations of the instrument as an extra voice.

Born in Paris to a schoolteacher mother and a composer father, Antoine Tamestit studied the viola with Jean Sulem at the Paris Conservatoire, in the United States with Jesse Levine and the Tokyo Quartet, and in Germany with the great Tabea Zimmermann. First prizes in the major viola competitions in Paris, New York and Munich (where he astounded the judges by playing the Schnittke Concerto from memory) demonstrated his brilliance, since when he’s been a soloist with many leading orchestras.

This product has now been deleted. Information is for reference only.

Error on this page? Let us know here

Need more information on this product? Click here