“Going Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin and Viola” = Stephanie Sant' Ambrogio – MSR

“Going Solo: Unaccompanied Works for Violin and Viola” = TELEMANN: Fantasia No. 7 in E-flat Major for solo violin; HENRI VIEUXTEMPS: Capriccio Op. Posth. No. 9 for solo violin; EUGÈNE YSAŸE: Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 27 No. 4; FRITZ KREISLER: Recitativo and Scherzo Caprice, Op. 6, for solo violin; AUGUSTA READ THOMAS: Incantation for solo viola; JAMES WINN: Pibroch for solo violin; ERWIN SCHULHOFF: Sonata for Solo Violin; QUINCY PORTER: Suite for Viola Alone; ASTOR PIAZZOLLA: Three Tango Etudes for solo violin – Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, violin – MSR Classics MS 1397 [Distr. by Albany], 70:20 *****:
In the brief autobiographical sketch on the back of the booklet accompanying this recording, Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio gives some context to her solo program. Through self-imposed corporate downsizing, so to speak, she moved from the hundred-member Cleveland Orchestra to the seventy-member San Antonio Symphony and finally to the intimate fellowship of the Argenta Trio, composed of faculty from the University of Nevada, Reno, where she teaches violin and viola. Going Solo takes her logically back to her roots as a music student, when she had to learn, alone, the ropes of technique and repertoire.
The resulting program has all the promised challenges and rewards that a survey of the solo literature for violin and viola can bring. I’m dazzled by the quality and variety of the pieces on display here, from the lyrical beauties of the Telemann to the cryptic drama of the Thomas and Winn pieces. Along the way, Ysaÿe, Kreisler, and Schulhoff throw enough technical roadblocks in the violinist’s path to make the trip an ultra-eventful one.
The Ysaÿe and Kreisler works make a logical pair: the Belgian violinist dedicated the fourth of his solo sonatas to Kreisler, composing it “with Kreisler’s robust technique and expressive sentimentality in mind.” Kreisler returned the favor by dedicating the Recitative and Scherzo Caprice to Ysaÿe, attempting to capture the style of the older master’s writing for violin. Both composers manage to unleash a barrage of technical challenges on the soloist. Of the two, the Ysaÿe is the more interesting, an homage to the solo sonatas of Bach incorporating the dance forms Bach used, allemande and sarabande. But the wide-ranging intervals and acerbic dissonances are purely twentieth-century artifacts, and the piece sounds more modernist than archaist. It keeps the violinist busy with a succession of double-stops, springing arpeggios, pizzicatos, and bariolage.
The most recent compositions, Thomas’s Incantation (1995) and Winn’s Priboch (2008), have a narrative quality about them. A priboch is a seriously-intentioned piece written for Scottish bagpipe. In America, the piece is mostly associated with funerals, where it’s played as a processional and at the graveside. James Winn dedicated his work to his late friend and benefactor, Gilbert Lenz. It starts with the sober pace of a funeral march but then charts a more emotionally charged landscape that represents, according to the composer, “the spirit coming to terms with death.” Meanwhile, Augusta Read Thomas’s work has a canny parlando quality about it that perfectly matches its incantatory theme: the viola almost speaks the chant, whatever it may be about.
I have to say that I’m more attracted to the steel-and-chrome modernism of the Schulhoff and Porter works than to Piazzolla; the Argentine composer’s more-pop-than-classical music isn’t really my cup of tea. Yet these etudes in the form of a tango are cleverly and attractively done, bringing the program to a satisfying conclusion.
Sant’ Ambrogio’s playing here and throughout is captured in warm, intimate, very present sound, adding to the appeal of this eminently appealing program. Highly recommended!
—Lee Passarella