Vilde Frang - Homage (2017) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Vilde Frang’s Homage is more than a captivating programme of short pieces for violin and piano, it is also a homage to the players of the Golden Age of the Violin, such as Fritz Kreisler, Leopold Auer and Joseph Szigeti. The recital includes music originally conceived not just for the violin, but also for piano, orchestra or voice, and proves once again, as BBC Music Magazine wrote, that “Frang has the knack of breathing life into every note, whether by variations in phrasing, attack, tone or dynamic.”

Vilde Frang has conceived the album as something of a homage to her illustrious predecessors. Born in 1986, she is clearly very much a violinist of today, and – as a Norwegian trained in Germany – she did not grow up in the Central and Eastern-European tradition of Heifetz, Kreisler, Auer and Szigeti. That being said, she brings her own, distinctively captivating magic to her instrument. As Gramophone wrote of her performance of the Korngold concerto, a work that has its roots in the composer’s glorious late-Romantic scores for Hollywood: “Frang has a winning way with the rubato that makes the melodies yearn and smile, but there’s a fragile thread of silver woven through her passagework that bounces off the glinting accompaniment of the Frankfurt RSO as an opalescent gown catches the light in a mirrored ballroom. Fresh thought illuminates each phrase and she has the technique to bring off every idea, from the wild caprice of the first movement’s dash to the double-bar, to a coquettish (or demure?) restraint in the finale’s big tune.”

Tracklist:

Franz Ries 1846–1932
1 La capricciosa 2.53
Robert Schumann 1810–1856 arr. Leopold Auer 1845–1930
2 Widmung (No.1 from Myrthen) 2.37
Henryk Wieniawski 1835–1880
3 “Obertass” Mazurka, Op.19 No.1 2.16
Christoph Willibald Gluck 1714–1787 trans. Fritz Kreisler 1875–1962
4 Melodie (“Dance of the Blessed Spirits” from Orfeo ed Euridice) 2.57
Franz Schubert 1797–1828 trans. Fritz Kreisler
5 Ballet music from Rosamunde 3.30
Poldowski 1879–1932
6 Tango 3.05
Claude Debussy 1862–1918 trans. Léon Roques 1839–1923
7 La plus que lente 4.37
Henryk Wieniawski trans. Fritz Kreisler
8 Caprice in E flat (Alla saltarella) 2.05
Alexander Scriabin 1872–1915 trans. Joseph Szigeti 1892–1973
9 Étude, Op.8 No.10 2.10
Fritz Kreisler
10 Rondino on a Theme by Beethoven 2.41
11 Gypsy Caprice 5.05
Antonín Dvorˇák 1841–1904 trans. Fritz Kreisler
12 Slavonic Dance in E minor, Op.46 No.2 4.18
Sergei Prokofiev 1891–1953 trans. Jascha Heifetz 1901–1987
13 Masks (from Romeo and Juliet) 2.05
Felix Mendelssohn 1809–1847 trans. Fritz Kreisler
14 Song without words, Op.62 No.1 2.39
Isaac Albéniz 1860–1909 arr. Jascha Heifetz
15 Sevilla (No.3 from Suite Española No.1) 4.32
Manuel Ponce 1882–1948 trans. Jascha Heifetz
16 Estrellita (My Little Star) Mexican Serenade 3.17
Antonio Bazzini 1818–1897
17 Calabrese, Op.34 No.6 3.58

Personnel:
Vilde Frang, violin
Jose Gallardo, piano