COMPOSERS: Benda,Brahms,Marais,Prokofiev,Ravel,Satie and Rameau,Stravinsky
LABELS: Onyx
WORKS: Assorted Encores
PERFORMER: Yuri Bashmet (viola), Mikhail Muntian (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 4032
Like Capuçon, Yuri Bashmet encompasses the whole spectrum of music-making with equally conspicuous success. Yet he is very different kind of player. If Capuçon is all about revitalising a centuries-old tradition, Bashmet is one of the last great figures in the long line of Russian instrumentalists stretching back to the Rubinstein brothers (Anton and Nikolay) in the mid-19th century. The sense of a musician living through each and every phrase is palpable throughout this recital. Anyone can produce a subito pianissimo with sufficient practice, but to make it resonate with such poignant emotional force as the heart-stopping moment at 2:40 in the Benda Grave is something given to only a few. Some might prefer the outer sections of Brahms’s C minor Scherzo to be projected with even greater visceral force than here, but to experience the way Bashmet and the remarkable Mikhail Muntian shape Ravel’s Pavane and (most especially) Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 with such time-suspending poise is worth the asking price alone. Julian Haylock
