JAVS Fall 2012

R ECORDING R EVIEWS

by Carlos María Solare

Gems Rediscovered . Music by Paul Juon, Ernest Walker, Benjamin Dale, and Robert Fuchs. Spencer Martin, viola; Miko Kominami, piano. Delos DE 3425. Last June at the International Viola Congress in Rochester, Spencer Martin’s performance of the C major Viola Sonata, op. 29, by Ernest Walker was—for me—a revelation. Already the opening strains stopped my heart, with the piano’s warm harmonies enveloping a soaring tune on the viola. The slow first movement is followed by a rousing Scherzo and a lovely final Rondo, both Brahmsian down to the evocation of hunting horns (in the for mer) and hearty Hungarian hues (in the latter). I was more than pleased to hear again the piece in Martin’s recording, and it wasn’t until the third or fourth hearing that I realized that it actually lacks a

Short Stories . Music by Rebecca Clarke, George Enescu, Betsy Jolas, Quincy Porter, Henryk Wieniawski, György Ligeti, Anna Weesner, Henry Vieuxtemps, Andrew Waggoner, and Dan Visconti. Melia Watras, viola; Kimberly Russ, piano. Fleur de Son Classics FDS 58007. For her latest CD, Melia Watras has chosen a nice mix of more or less central repertoire and several seldom-heard pieces. Clarke’s Passacaglia on an Old English Tune is taken at a steady pace that avoids any suggestion of bombast, and the individual vari ations are subtly characterized, building up to a mighty climax. Enescu’s Concertpiece receives a muscular reading that, however, misses some of the piece’s perfumed fin de siècle atmosphere. Like the Enescu, Betsy Jolas’s unaccompanied Episode six ième was originally a competition set piece (in this case for the Concours Maurice Vieux). Watras holds the somewhat rambling piece convincingly together and finds variegated colors for it. I won’t comment on whether or not Watras follows the indication to finger a couple of notes with the left thumb in Porter’s Speed Etude , but she certainly finds the time—even at top speed—to bring out the cross-rhythm accents strewn throughout the piece. Wieniawski’s Rêverie and Vieuxtemps’s Elégie are intimately phrased, with a discriminating use of vibrato. Ligeti’s Loop is most accurately played, if not with quite the relaxed naturalness Garth Knox or Antoine Tamestit brings to it. The remaining three pieces were written for Watras: Anna Weesner’s Flexible Parts consists of seven minimalis tic movements that explore mostly light, airy sonorities with much use of harmonics; Andrew Waggoner’s Elle s’enfuit is a humorously exhibition istic showpiece, brilliantly realized; Dan Visconti’s unaccompanied Hard-Knock Stomp makes for a rousing encore to this adventurous, well-planned, and engagingly presented recital.

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