Various Composers - Violin Encores! [Midori/ McDonald]First off the booklet, what a gorgeous picture of Midori, it's everything yesterdays booklet should be and is not, a lovely meditative study by William Coupon, in lovely browns and oranges, very nicely lit to create lovely shadows, and the art design [lettering] is by Josephine DiDonato, only the Sony logo seems slightly out of place, full marks for creating something as visually stimulating as is aurally stimulating on the inside.
This is a great varied collection, i wish Midori would have recorded single items only, the Shostakovich and Bartok 'sets' sort of get in the way, there's truly great pieces on here, while others are somewhat average, it's also good to have pieces that are fairly rare as well.
The tracks/pieces i enjoyed the most are 3, 6, 12, 17 & 19, track 19 'Dance Of The Blessed Spirits' by Gluck [arranged by Kreisler] hit me the most, it starts off so solemn and restrained, the melody is truly otherworldly [0:00-0:35], the piece becomes more passionate and intense [0:35-0:54], and then the theme goes into a sort of coda-ish phase [0:54-1:14], where the resolution finds its peace, it's this untangling of knots that is a highlight for me, especially at 1:03 [1:15 on the video below], the piano in the background is gentle and rolling, the piece continues to weave its magic around this opening theme for another two minutes, it's one of those truly inspired moments in Classical music, and it's been transcribed for many other combinations as well.
Here's Renaud Capucon playing Dance Of The Blessed Spirits by Gluck on YouTube.
