Classical and Modern Music
Format: Trojni CD
Code: 112447
EAN: 3838898112447
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Igor Ozim (born 1931) began his violin studies with Leon Pfeifer in Ljubljana. Before entering the Academy of Music, he was also studying the piano and finished classical secondary school in Ljubljana. On a scholarship from the British Council, he continued his studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Max Rostal. In 1951 he won the Carl Flesch Violin Competition, and in 1953
the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. As an internationally acclaimed concert violinist, he collaborated with the world’s most esteemed orchestras. For many decades he was teaching at the Cologne University of Music – the post was offered to him by his former professor Max Rostal. Additionally, he has been teaching violin at the universities in Bern and Vienna. Currently, he is a professor at the Salzburg Mozarteum and holds master classes for violinists around the world, for
many years also in the Slovenian town of Velenje. He has been a member of the jury in various prestigious international violin competitions. His editions of a number of classical and contemporary music works for violin, among them Mozart’s violin concertos, have been published by prominent publishers. Today, Igor Ozim is one of the most appreciated authorities on violin playing in the world. With his pedagogical and artistic work, he has significantly contributed to the modern approach to
studying this royal instrument. His playing is characterized by crystal clear intonation, superb bowing technique, flawless tone production, and carefully considered interpretation, which reflects his profound knowledge and precise analysis of musical works. Igor Ozim has recorded a number of the most beautiful masterpieces of the violin repertoire, including several important Slovenian works. His recordings of the violin concertos by Lucijan Marija Škerjanc, Ivo Petrić, Janez Matičič, and
Uroš Krek, as well as of many other pieces shine through his meticulous and masterful performance. His artistic approach could be described as a highly disciplined and artistically honest striving after the sublime Apollonian ideal, which inspires the greatest masterpieces of the Western culture.
The pianist Alan Brown studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he now works. Before graduating as a concert pianist, he won several prizes, and was proclaimed National Most Promising Pianist of the Year. He collaborates with acclaimed artists, performing in Europe’s most prestigious concert halls.
Igor Ozim’s International Violin Summer School first took place in August 1986, and reached its 20th anniversary edition in 2011. Igor Ozim’s master classes are one of the seminars with the longest traditions in Slovenia, and are considered to be one of the most demanding. They have been attended by more than 350 young and talented violinists, many of whom are today acclaimed artists,
including Richard Tognetti, Sergej Levitin, Jim Woo Lee, Andreas Janke, Keisuke Okazaki, Yuki Janke, Yukari Aotani in Ji In Yang. For this release(CD 3) Professor Ozim has chosen some of their performances from the final concerts from the years 1987, 1995, 2001, 2002 and 2009.
Igor Ozim and Beethoven’s Sonatas
The ten Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin are certainly one of the peaks of chamber music. The violinist Igor Ozim has performed them countless times at recitals and has also honed his interpretation thereof in his teaching work with generations of students. As he said himself, he has always been learning from his students as well. The recordings on these CDs were
made at his recitals on 17, 22 and 23 April 1997, when Igor Ozim and the pianist Alan Brown performed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s violin sonatas in the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall in Ljubljana.
The first three sonatas for piano and violin, Op. 12, were written in 1797–1798 and were published in 1799 by the music publishing firm Artaria with a dedication to Antonio Salieri, one of Beethoven’s (and later also Schubert’s and Liszt’s) music teachers. The sonatas were composed at a time when Beethoven was still proving himself in the elegant style of Haydn and Mozart, yet their rhythmical variety and audacious harmonic tension give them an exceptional power of expression and already
predict the revolutionary change in musical
style Beethoven brought about in the beginning of the new century. Similarly as in the first two sonatas of Op. 12, also in the third sonata the piano is given an important role but the violin part is technically demanding as well. It should be noted that Beethoven took into account the performing practice of his time and the possibilities of the then unstruments and that he also considered the performers he was writing for. The fortepiano (Hammerklavier) of the time had a tone with less
sustain than the modern piano and Vienna was later than
Paris in adopting the heavier Tourte bow, which enabled a fuller tone of the violin but was less agile than the lighter and livelier bows of older types. At the time, the violinists used much less vibrato and resorted more often to empty strings. Just at the time when Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin were written (1797–1812), the performing practice was changing very quickly. Beethoven’s writing for the violin (and even more for the string quartet) is closely connected with his
friend, the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh, who in the years from 1797 to 1802 premiered the first eight violin sonatas together with the composer. They do not contain virtuoso violin parts in the modern sense of the word – musical exhibitions as an end in itself were despised by Beethoven – yet they require much skillfulness and technical knowledge from the violinist; they suggest that Schuppanzigh, whom Beethoven teasingly called “my Sir Fallstaff” due to his corpulence, was really an
outstanding musician. In the Sonata for piano and violin in E-flat major, Op. 12 No. 3, the violin part is already equal to the piano one, the themes of the first movement in sonata form are rhythmically and melodically very lively, the piano and the violin exchange musical ideas in an animated dialogue, the violinist has to
distinguish himself by long double stops and various combinations of bow movements in quick semiquavers and dazzlingly fast sextuplets in a consistent legato. The second movement Adagio con molta espressione receives a special tension from audacious harmonic connections, which in the central violin cantilena lead from the basic C major to the far A-flat major. The final Rondo is delightful due to the imaginative modulations and transpositions of the main theme, which present the basic dance
melody in various attractive disguises.
The seasons of the year and the activities connected therewith have always inspired artists; Beethoven’s sonata for piano and violin No. 5 in F major, Op. 24, known as the “Spring” sonata (Frühlingssonate), which name was never contested by Beethoven, published in 1802 and dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, one of his patrons, certainly belongs to apotheoses of spring inspiration. He chose for it the key that he usually connected to an optimistic, pastoral mood, since his Pastoral symphony
and the cheerful Violin Romance, Op. 50, are also written in F major. Yet the sonata contains a cyclical series of contrasting moods; while the first and the fourth movements feature spring time, the beatiful Adagio is pensive and almost religious as if the soul, at peace with herself and the world, was taking leave of life in the middle of the season, which is not only characterized by nature awakening but also by many a death. The short Scherzo, in which the violin and the piano chase each
other in a boisterous canon and then steady themselves in quick scale passages, calls to mind a snow storm followed by warm spring sunshine.
The sonata in C minor, Op. 30 No. 2, was written in 1802, at the first beginnings of the creative momentum that gave the mankind the Eroica and fundamentally altered the situation and the purpose of music in human
experience: from this moment on it has been capable of taking on the weight of the world and expressing everything human from the most intimate emotions to the great topics concerning all humanity. With the Third symphony the sonata shares the key as well as the heroic dramatic quality and the time extent as if the music was standing before new responsibilities and therefore needed more metrical units, more time. The questioning main theme of the first movement is presented by the piano, its
character is determined by a transitional figure of four semiquavers connecting the fatally falling C minor triad; the second theme in march rhythm tries to resolve the oppressive questioning. Yet can the principle of order really replace the feeling of warmth, happiness, a fullfilled life? This seems to be the fundamental topic of the composition. The comforting and melodious Adagiomovement is followed by the Scherzo that acts as a consideration of common sense; Beethoven was not proud of it
and even wanted to take it out of the sonata. The fast Finale does not resolve the fundamental question of the sonata but intensifies it; in the tempestous coda the introductory oppressive questioning motif reappears.
Beethoven’s sonata No. 9 for violin and piano, Op. 47, was written in 1803. Beethoven wrote it for the violinist George Bridgetower, whom he had met through Ignaz Schuppanzigh. Bridgetower also premiered the sonata together with the author on 24 May 1803 at Augarten Theatre at a concert that started at the unusually early hour of 8:00 am. The violinist sightread the composition, in the eighteenth bar of the first movement he improvised the cadence and in the slow movement he so faithfully
repeated Beethoven’s improvisation that the latter stood up to say approvingly: “Noch einmal, mein lieber Bursch!” (“Once more, my dear fellow!”). Beethoven first dedicated the sonata to Bridgetower with a teasingly ironical dedication “sonata per un mulattico lunatico”. Namely, Bridgetower was a mulatto, his father was a West Indian servant of count Esterhazy, Haydn’s patron, and his mother was Polish. George was born in Biala in Poland; as a child prodigy he studied violin with the greatest
masters of his time, thus in London with Ivan Mane Jarnović of Dubrovnik origin. During the interval of the premiere concert Bridgetower made an indiscreet remark about a lady Beethoven cherished and the sensitive composer deleted the original dedication and dedicated the piece to the French virtuoso Rodolphe Kreutzer, who is best known for his études that have to be practised by anyone who wants to
become a violinist. For some time Kreutzer was an attaché at the French embassy in Vienna and shared the revolutionary ideals with Beethoven. Yet the impulsive virtuosity of the sonata did not appeal to Kreutzer, who was known for his melodious and smooth legato. He declared the piece incomprehensible and never made the effort to play it. The sonata, however, is one of the most expressive musical pieces in existence. The sonata begins with a chordal cadence for the violin (rather treacherous
for the soloist), then the sonata movement develops, a tempestous music in alla breve tempo considered by Leo Tolstoy so suggestive and demonic that it could push a jealous person into committing a crime, which he described in his short story The Kreutzer Sonata in a very persuasive manner. (In 1922 Leoš Janaček set the emotional atmosphere of Tolstoy’s work to music in his First string quartet.) The second movement of the sonata comprises lyrical variations that Beethoven’s genius raised
high above conventional emotionality. The second variation requires the violinist to master the interrrupted bow strokes in a virtuoso manner in order to be up to the quick semiquavers Beethoven used like elaborate lace to decorate the tune. The final Rondo, which was originally composed for the earlier sonata for piano and violin, Op. 30 No. 1, which is also in A major, is a wild outburst of optimism, a fast tarantella that gets its momentum from the rhythmically accented main theme.
Violin sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96, was written for another French virtuoso visiting Vienna: the violinist Pierre Rode premiered the sonata on 29 December 1812 at Prince Lobkowitz’s with Beethoven’s pupil Archduke Rudolph, to whom the piece is also dedicated, playing the piano. Beethoven revised the sonata before publication in 1816. In it he distanced himself from the heroic feeling of his second creative period. The beginning of the sonata with muted trills foresees late Beethoven of
the last string quartets; the composer’s intention is not to demonstrate the shining virtuosity of the performers. The dramatic accents in the intimately harmonius first movement always tone down to a melodious outcome. The Adagio with its harmonical saturation and seething melodies anounces Schumann’s and Brahms’ way of writing music; the movement dissolves into the determined appearance of G minor in the Scherzo, which is characterized by a series of playful accents on the third beat. The
Trio in E-flat major, the key of the Adagio, is more melodious, whereas the coda of the Scherzo brings a return to the basic G major key. The final Poco allegretto is a series of variations on the theme Tatatuli from the popular Singspiel by Johann Adam Hiller Der Teufel ist los oder Die verwandelten Frauen (Devil is Loose or the Transformed Women). After this sonata, Beethoven only wrote one more piece for solo violin, namely the spiritual solo in the Benedictus of Missa Solemnis.
Matej Venier
CD 1
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonate / Sonatas
Sonata Op.12/3, Es-dur
1. Allegro con spirito 8.14
2. Adagio con molt' espressione 6.21
3. Rondo – Allegro molto 4.33
Sonata Op.24, F-dur
4. Allegro 9.29
5. Adagio molto espressivo 5.26
6. Scherzo (Allegro molto) – Trio Rondo
- Allegro molto man on troppo 7.44
Sonata Op.30/2, c-mol
7. Allegro con brio 7.34
8. Adagio cantabile 9.14
9. Scherzo (Allegro) – Trio 3.23
10.Finale – Allegro 5.12
CD 2
Sonata Op.47, A-dur, »Kreutzer«
1. Adagio sostenuto – Presto 11.04 (listen!)
2. Andante con Variazioni 14.43
3. Finale – Presto 6.36
Sonata Op. 96, G-dur
4. Allegro moderato 9.55
5. Adagio espressivo 7.58
6. Scherzo (Allegro) -
Trio Poco Allegretto 8.33
CD 3
1. Niccolò Paganini: Caprice No. 21 3.12
2. Niccolò Paganini: Caprice No. 3 3.13
3. Henryk Wieniawski: Koncert / Concert, fis-mol,
I. Allegro moderato 12.35
4. Camille Saint-Saëns: Valse Caprice 8.42
5. Maurice Ravel: Cigan / Tzigane 9.57
6. Niccolò Paganini: Koncert / Concert No.1, D-dur,
I. Allegro maestoso 16.55
7. Eugène Ysaÿe: Solo Sonata No.6 8.36
8. Eugène Ysaÿe: Solo Sonata No.3, Ballade 7.29
CD 1 & CD 2
violina / violin -Igor Ozim
klavir / piano - Alan Brown
CD 3
violina / violin
1. Richard Tognetti
2. Sergej Levitin
3. Jin Woo Lee
4. Andreas Janke
5. Keisuke Okazaki
6. Juki Manuela Janke
7. Yukari Aotani
8. Ji In Yang
