ヴァイオリン・オデッセイ

コロナ禍の世界を廻る音楽旅行

コロナによる世界的なロックダウンを受けて、米国在住のヴァイオリニスト、イタマール・ゾルマンは新しいレパートリーの発掘に時間を費やしました。ニュージーランドからアメリカへ、そしてスーダン、中国、ロシア、ポーランドと、幅広い地域の魅力的な作品を演奏。滅多に聴くことのできない文化の多様性を楽しめます。クロアチアの女性作曲家ドーラ・ペジャチェヴィチや、チェコの作曲家エルヴィン・シュルホフのソナタなどは聴き応えもかなりのもの。
キングインターナショナル

The "violin odyssey" programmed here by violinist Itamar Zorman was born of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the performer launched online concerts from his home and from nearby halls in the states of Georgia and South Carolina, exploring unusual violin repertory from around the world. Zorman conceived an album based on these concerts, settling on a selection of ten works in emulation of Boccaccios Decameron (the ten tales in that medieval collection were told by plague refugees). The idea was a good one, for violin virtuosos of the 19th century often relied on music from what was then the musical periphery, and Zorman has effectively updated the idea. He nods to his predecessors with Jascha Heifetzs arrangements of Joseph Achrons charming Childrens Suite, Op. 57, and with a work by his father, Moshe Zorman, but beyond that, he seems to aim for maximum diversity. There are full-scale sonatas by the late Romantic Dora Pejačević and the 1920s-eclectic Erwin Schulhoff, who later died in the Holocaust. The sharp contrast between these two forms a good framework, but even more interesting are some of the byways Zorman wanders down, traveling to Latin America, east Africa (in composer Ali Osmans Afromood), China, New Zealand (in the fascinating Maori-inspired Wakatipu of Gareth Farr), and African America in the lovely and little-heard short piece Summerland of William Grant Still. Zorman balances everything well here; there is enough heft that there is no feeling of a set of encores, yet there is always the sense of finding something new around every corner. He is a player with a strong sense for sentiment, which is in abundant supply here. Judith Sherman garnered a Grammy nomination for Producer of the Year in part for this album, and indeed, working at Baldwin Auditorium at Duke University, she produces a fair facsimile of the intimate chamber atmosphere in which such a concert might have been heard a century and a quarter ago. An enjoyable release that will bring something new for almost anyone. ~ James Manheim