Fratres: Music by Part, Corigliano, Moravec, Glinsky, Messiaen

Maria Bachmann's commitment to performing modern music has been central to her career, and her polished recordings for RCA clearly benefit contemporary American composers, whose violin sonatas and other works she admires and vigorously champions. John Corigliano's dramatic Sonata for violin and piano would be obscure but for Bachmann's energetic promotion of it, and the plaintively lyrical Sonata for violin and piano by Paul Moravec and the spitfire Toccata-Scherzo by Albert Glinsky receive their world premieres here, thanks to this violinist's encouragement. With the supportive but unobtrusive accompaniment of Jon Klibonoff, Bachmann presents these pieces with her full range of sonorities, techniques, and expressions, and the duo plays with all the conviction and energy they would put into performing famous masterworks. For a diversion from the rather active fare mentioned above, Bachmann has rounded out her recital with two meditative works, though neither is American nor unknown: Arvo Part's Fratres and Olivier Messiaen's "Louange a l'immortalite de Jesus," from the Quartet for the End of Time. Fratres is quite well known in numerous arrangements, and "Louange" has already achieved "greatest-hit" status among modern works; yet Bachmann seems to find the right approach to make them sound fresh and unexpectedly affecting. The sound quality is exceptional.