Two violinists and one pianist

ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Violinist Ilya Gringolts embraces contemporary music side by side with the standard concert repertoire. He has also cultivated the study of historical performance practice, focusing on this instance on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. In this impeccably programmed BIS album, titled Ciaccona [BIS-2525 SACE] Bach’s Chaconne keeps company with similar works in the contemporary idioms of European composers Roberto Gerhard and Brice Pauset, including a diminutive Ciacconina composed by Heinz Holliger for Isabelle Faust.

French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard has recorded for PENTATONE before. This time he returns with a rendering of Beethoven’s monumentally challenging Hammerklavier Sonata. On the same CD, Aimard delivers a take on the Eroica Variations, a pianistic minefield in which Beethoven revisited the key melody from the finale of his Third Symphony, one which he also recaptured for his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus.  

NAXOS will soon release the latest installment in its Music of Brazil series: Heitor Villa-Lobos Complete Violin Sonatas. Featuring violinist Emmanuele Baldini and pianist Pablo Rossi, each sonata shares some influence from 20th century French music. While all three are early works, the first’s title, Désespérance (“Despair”) with its Brazilian saudade, the intensity of the second, and the complexity of the third foretell Villa-Lobos’ growth as a composer for the very instrument that he himself played and loved. The two Brazilian artists in this recording should excel in their understanding of the music of their country’s greatest composer.

Rafael de Acha ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Published by ALL ABOUT THE ARTS

Rafael de Acha has enjoyed a distinguished career in the arts as a performer, stage director, producer, and educator. He was born and grew up in Cuba. At the age of 17 he moved to the United States to study Drama at the University of Minnesota, and later Languages at L.A. City College, Music at the Juilliard School of Music, at the University of Cincinnati’s College Conservatory of Music, and at the New England Conservatory of Music, from which he received the Master's degree. He has taught courses on the History of Music at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music and at Florida International University, and contributed writings and reviews to Seen and Heard International (www.seenandheard-international.com ) and to this blog. He co-founded the award-winning New Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida, where he produced and staged twenty seasons of classical and contemporary theater, including fifty world premieres of plays that went on to have international and national productions on and off Broadway, including Ana in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz (Pulitzer Prize for Drama 2002 and Tony Nomination 2003.) In 2006 he was presented with a citation from The Dade County Cultural Affairs Council for “trailblazing contributions to the arts in South Florida.”