Elogio per un'ombra

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
This is a most unusual recording. The composers, past and present, Italian and American, have all exerted some kind of musical or personal influence on one another. The program is mostly 20th century, but it's framed by Baroque works, concluding with an anonymous Italian 14th-century lament, and opening with three movements of Tartini's Sonata No. 7 in A minor for solo violin. The very long fourth movement is a theme with 21 variations; Makarski selects and intersperses several of these between the other works as a thread connecting the old and the new. The movement is thought to have inspired composers as diverse as Paganini and Dallapiccola to write variations of their own.

The disc recalls certain characteristics of Makarski's earlier ECM recording, Caoine. It is named after one of the pieces; it revisits George Rochberg's 52 "Caprice variations" on Paganini's 24th Caprice, but presents different variations; the program is extremely demanding and mostly unaccompanied, and the playing is admirable. Makarski's flawless technique is entirely at the service of the music; her tone is beautiful, austere, pure, and variable; her concentrated expressiveness and stylistic empathy are complete and never falter. --Edith Eisler

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Michelle Makarski came to notice with her enterprising recital, ‘Caoine' (also on ECM). If that came across as not quite the sum of its parts, the present release finds a natural focal point in the tradition of Italian virtuosity that has continued over centuries and cultures. Its features are well illustrated by Tartini's Seventh Sonata, where a formal and harmonic poise co-exist in music which, compared to the equilibrium of Bach, exists on the cusp of unrestrained emotional expression.

Elogio per un'ombra

Tracks:

Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 8
Son No.7 in a: Adagio
Son No.7 in a: Allegro
Son No.7 in a: Allegro
Due Studi: Sarabande - Michelle Makarski/Thomas Larcher
Due Studi: Fanfara E Fuga - Michelle Makarski/Thomas Larcher
Elogio Per Un'ombra
Due Pezzi: Calmo - Michelle Makarski/Thomas Larcher
Due Pezzi: Quasi Allegro, Alla Marcia - Michelle Makarski/Thomas Larcher
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 13
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 18
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 15
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 14
Riconoscenza Per Goffredo Petrassi
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Var 8
Son No.7 in a: Tema Con Var, Tema
Caprice Vars: Var 12, Andante Con Moto
Caprice Vars: Var 27, Aria
Caprice Vars: Var 6, Poco Allegretto Ma Con Rubato
Caprice Vars: Var 37, Barcarolle
Lamento Di Tristano

Amazon.com

This is a most unusual recording. The composers, past and present, Italian and American, have all exerted some kind of musical or personal influence on one another. The program is mostly 20th century, but it's framed by Baroque works, concluding with an anonymous Italian 14th-century lament, and opening with three movements of Tartini's Sonata No. 7 in A minor for solo violin. The very long fourth movement is a theme with 21 variations; Makarski selects and intersperses several of these between the other works as a thread connecting the old and the new. The movement is thought to have inspired composers as diverse as Paganini and Dallapiccola to write variations of their own.

The disc recalls certain characteristics of Makarski's earlier ECM recording, Caoine. It is named after one of the pieces; it revisits George Rochberg's 52 "Caprice variations" on Paganini's 24th Caprice, but presents different variations; the program is extremely demanding and mostly unaccompanied, and the playing is admirable. Makarski's flawless technique is entirely at the service of the music; her tone is beautiful, austere, pure, and variable; her concentrated expressiveness and stylistic empathy are complete and never falter. --Edith Eisler

Customer Reviews:

An outstanding violin recital.......2003-11-22

This wide-ranging violin recital--Michelle Makarski's second for ECM--intercuts a range of themes: Italian violin music, variation form, and the group of composers that built up around Luigi Dallapiccola.

It begins with the 7th solo violin sonata of the Italian baroque composer Giuseppe Tartini. This is a work that appears rather ambiguous in its score, with the standard three movements of most of Tartini's sonatas being placed alongside a set of variations, with no indication if the variations--much longer than the whole sonata--should be played with the sonata or separately. Makarski plays the dynamic 8th variation as an entree to the main dish of the sonata. This begins with a long, melodic slow movement, follows that with a rather unnecessarily virtuosic fast movement and concludes with a light-hearted bouncy fast finale. If no masterpiece, it is a thoroughly enjoyable work.

Following this, we cut to post-war Italy for Luigi Dallapiccola's Due Studi. This is a rather cautious title for what is in fact a major, rather bleak work. The first movement pits ruminative, ominous dodecaphonic melody in the violin against contrapuntal accompaniment in the piano; the second begins with ferocious chordal outbursts, and in its anger and despair clarifies the premonitions of the first movement. Thomas Larcher's piano playing is an excellent foil to the outstanding Makarski here.

Goffredo Petrassi's solo violin piece Elogio per un'ombra, the title track of the album, is a somewhat ambivalent tribute on the 25th anniversary of the death of Alfredo Casella. In its slowly unfolding chromatic melody, matched with shadowy harmonics, this is a very strong work, though one that sneaks up on the listener rather than imposing on him or her.

Luciano Berio's Due Pezzi for violin and piano are early works. The first movement's ruminative outlook and fascination with counterpoint are reminiscent of Dallapiccola--though not nearly as subtle--while the second movement begins to look towards the mature composer.

Following this, Makarski returns to Tartini, with a selection of four more of the variations--all delightfully written and played--before playing Elliott Carter's Riconoscenza per Goffredo Petrassi--a work written for the latter composer's 80th birthday. By turns dramatic, lyrical and abrasive, this is Carter's later style encapsulated in a miniature. This work is now included as part of the Four Lauds, stunningly recorded by Thomas Zehetmair in a more recent ECM recital, but Makarski's performance is still well worth hearing.

Makarski reprises the eighth Tartini variation, then plays the theme, and then launches into four of George Rochberg's Caprice Variations, based on the famous 24th Caprice of Paganini. Sensibly, she chooses not to play all fifty--which total well over an hour--but this ten-minute selection gives a good flavour of the work, which is written in a self-consciously archaic style--or, to be more accurate, several self-consciously archaic styles.

The disc ends with a brief work by an unknown composer: the 14th century Lamento di Tristano. It's a haunting end to an interesting voyage, and if the program suits, I recommend joining Makarski's journey. By any standards the Dallapiccola and Petrassi are major works, and everything else is well worth hearing, particularly when played as well as it is here. Excellent liner notes by the American composer Stephen Hartke complement an already outstanding disc.

Haunting and Brilliant.......2001-08-06

Michelle Makarski is an amazing violinist. This recording (I believe it is her 2nd solo album) concentrates on Italian music from Baroque to modern (with Italian-influenced pieces by Rochberg). Some piano from Thomas Larcher on one of the pieces adds to the effect. Amazingly beautiful, a record to be listened to over and over again. Anyone with an interest in Tartini and Italian tradition of violin virtuosity will want to own this; everybody else...well, try it: it's great.

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