Here's a nice surprise for my Blog, i played this disc because it's in my collection, i've struggled with these works, but the answer is to keep giving them a spin, and slowly they could warm to you, well today i more than warmed to it, suddenly almost out of nowhere i feel that these works are firm friends, the third movement Andante of Sonata 1 was very meaningful, but it was Sonata 2 that really fell into place, it now all makes sense, the First Sonata actually sounds like something Shostakovich would do, especially the slow movements, but the Second is all Prokofiev, with his wry melodies, now i'm on the lookout to maybe sample some other interpretations.
Vadim Repin is Russian, he is still only 41, and he recorded this disc in 1995, Repin / Berezovsky look so youthful on the front booklet, he now has greying hair, the front cover picture [by Thomas Muller] is a nice warm double portrait, highlighted by the dark background, and the orange colours, nicely laid out.
The first two movements were tremendous, and it was probably the second movement that i found so compelling, it's a short thing of not much more than 4 minutes, and full of invention and ideas, the violin playing a nice little impish melody with a pizzicato plink at the end of it, and the piano is no spectator / accompanist, and the violin glides in figurative whoops, and the piano responds with runs up and down the treble [0:38-0:46], that's a nice effect, the tune gets played twice before there's a more restrained middle section of sadness [1:40-2:55], sounding somewhat like a lazy Shostakovich march, and it's good to have the initial tune return [3:00+], and really it's over almost before it's started, there's some good twangy pizzicato near the end, nicely virtuosic, a great little movement of invention.
Here's Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich playing the second movement on YouTube.
Vadim Repin is Russian, he is still only 41, and he recorded this disc in 1995, Repin / Berezovsky look so youthful on the front booklet, he now has greying hair, the front cover picture [by Thomas Muller] is a nice warm double portrait, highlighted by the dark background, and the orange colours, nicely laid out.
The first two movements were tremendous, and it was probably the second movement that i found so compelling, it's a short thing of not much more than 4 minutes, and full of invention and ideas, the violin playing a nice little impish melody with a pizzicato plink at the end of it, and the piano is no spectator / accompanist, and the violin glides in figurative whoops, and the piano responds with runs up and down the treble [0:38-0:46], that's a nice effect, the tune gets played twice before there's a more restrained middle section of sadness [1:40-2:55], sounding somewhat like a lazy Shostakovich march, and it's good to have the initial tune return [3:00+], and really it's over almost before it's started, there's some good twangy pizzicato near the end, nicely virtuosic, a great little movement of invention.
Here's Gidon Kremer and Martha Argerich playing the second movement on YouTube.
