Return of the 'Red Violin'

When director François Girard consulted Joshua Bell about performing on the film score to The Red Violin, the young virtuoso violinist knew without hesitation who he wanted to compose the music: John Corigliano. "He's a composer that I have respected for a very long time," says Bell, during a brief respite at his New York home. "He's a composer who really knows what he wants—he is very meticulous about the details and I like that. His music is well crafted and he has a knack for writing beautiful music.

"John simply writes great for the violin," says Bell, "probably because his father was the concertmaster with the New York Philharmonic for many years. He really understands the instrument."

At the time, Bell—who later earned an Academy Award for his performance of solo violin pieces in the film—had hoped for a full Corigliano concerto. Four years later, he has gotten his wish. On September 18, Bell played the world premiere of The Red Violin, Corigliano's new concerto for violin and orchestra, with the Baltimore Symphony under conductor Marin Alsop.

At press time, additional fall performances were scheduled with symphonies in Altanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. A springtime concert of The Red Violin is planned for Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Bell gets to let his hair down, so to speak, on Romance of the Violin (Sony), a new classical crossover project that breaks new ground for the 35-year-old violinist. The disc includes 14 of Bell's favorite melodies and features several operatic works that have not been recorded previously for the violin, including Puccini's famous aria "O Mio Bambino Caro" and the title aria from Bellini's Casta Diva. "Basically, these are my desert-island melodies," Bell says. "Unlike other albums I've done, which most often are all virtuoso pieces, I decided to take the focus off the virtuoso element and concentrate on beautiful melodies for the violin and orchestra.

"I'm pretty happy with how it turned out."

—Greg Cahill

Photo: Timothy White

Russian Soul

A Russian maestro once told Japanese violinist Hideko Udagawa (shown above on the right) that her grasp of that nation's composers indicated she had Russian blood coursing through her veins. Udagawa's latest CD, Aram Khachaturian: Sonata and Dances (Koch), is further evidence that this former child prodigy is tapped into Russia’s collective soul. The stunning disc (with Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky, shown above on the left) features seven world-premiere recordings.

It commemorates the centennial year of Khachaturian (1903–1978), one of Russia's best-loved composers before he was denounced in 1948 by the Soviet regime—along with Shostakovich and Prokofiev—for writing elitist works.

The disc also enjoys a bond with filmmaker Peter Rosen's remarkable new documentary Aram Khachaturian, which is making the rounds this fall on the North American film-fest circuit.

Rosen (who directed a music video for Udagawa, which is included on the enhanced version of her new disc) introduced Udagawa to Khachaturian's grandson, who then offered the violinist the previously unpublished manuscript to Dance No. 1 (1925) from the family archives. Other world-premiere recordings on the new CD include the rarely heard but powerful Sonata for Violin and Piano, Elegy, the Nuneh Variation from "Gayaneh" (transcribed by L. Feigen), Nocturne from "Masquerade" (transcribed by the composer), Ayesha’s Dance from "Gayaneh" (transcribed by Jascha Heifetz), and Dance of Egyna from "Spartacus" (transcribed by K. Mostras). Of course, Khachaturian’s best-known piece, Sabre Dance from the 1942 ballet "Gayaneh," also is included in a raw (and quite difficult) transcription by Heifetz.

"Khachaturian had so much love, so much emotion for his music–his happiness, his sorrow, everything comes out in his music," says Udagawa. "His music is so colorful, so original."

Her interest in the Khachaturian project started when a friend introduced Udagawa to the Sonata for Violin and Piano, which she had never heard before. "I started to look at it and thought, what an interesting piece," she recalls. Udagawa was astonished to find that no one had ever recorded the work. She soon started to research Khachaturian's other works and found several unrecorded pieces by the composer.

"I feel that he is very underrated as a composer and was surprised that so many of his works were unrecorded," she says. "I feel like it's my mission to bring this music to a new generation and that more people should play his compositions.

"I have so much passion for this!"

—G.C.

On the Road

On September 11, the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the Eastern seaboard, cellist Matt Haimovitz (shown above) launched his 50-state "Anthem" tour with a concert at a small nightclub in Seattle. His new Anthem CD, recorded at New York's venerable punk emporium CBGBs, symbolically features 11 short cello works by nine composers (including two improvisations by the cellist himself), most of whom reflect on the events of 9/11. One is Haimovitz's take on Jimi Hendrix' pyrotechnic rendering of the Star Spangled Banner. The others include two pieces commissioned especially in response to the tragedy of 9/11: the jazz-influenced "Seventh Avenue Kaddish" by Rome Prize winner David Sanford, and 9:11 Blues by Toby Twining, a 2003 Pew fellow. Recent commissions by Luna Pearl Woolf and Robert Stern, as well as first recordings of pieces by Osvaldo Golijov, Tod Machover, and Augusta Read Thomas, and works by Steve Mackey and the recently deceased icon of American music, Lou Harrison, round out the compositions on the disc. "Anthem is my celebration of America's fine-art culture through the lens of the solo cello," Haimovitz notes. "The bulk of the album focuses on living American composers with whom I have had a close connection."

Photo: Michael Amsler