Subito by Julia Hwang

Various composers

Julia Hwang

Subito

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212048627
Catnr: SIGCD 486
Release date: 07 July 2017
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Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212048627

Catalogue number
SIGCD 486

Release date
07 July 2017

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Subito: suddenly, or immediately. And something else besides – a moment of revelation or transformation, charged with surprise. When Witold Lutoslawski gave this title to the showpiece that he wrote for a violin competition in Indianapolis in 1994, he evoked all these qualities, and more – that delighted astonishment; the brilliant, piercing moment of musical communion between performer and listener that comes with true virtuosity. On her debut album, Julia Hwang has taken that idea – of virtuosity as communication – and embraced it from four very different directions. Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 3 blends virtuosity with traditions both local and international, to say something unambiguously personal. Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending refines violin technique into expression as pure as the song of a skylark. Lutoslawski’s Subito creates a brief, dazzling moment whose very brilliance is its own meaning; and Henryk Wieniawski, entertainer par excellence, spins fantasy from another man’s tunes in his Fantaisie brillante sur des motifs de l’Opéra Faust de Gounod – enriching them in the process. This release continues Signum’s series of discs with St John’s College Cambridge, following their two critically-praised Choral albums of 2016.

Virtuositeit als communicatie vanuit vier verschillende perspectieven
Subito: plotseling, of onmiddellijk. En daarnaast nog iets – een moment van openbaring of transformatie, geladen met verrassing. Toen Witold Lutosławski deze titel gaf aan het bravourestuk dat hij voor een vioolcompetitie in Indianapolis in 1994 componeerde, riep hij al deze kwaliteiten op, en meer – die heerlijke verbazing; het schitterende, doordringende moment van muzikale verbondenheid tussen uitvoerende en luisteraar dat ware virtuositeit met zich meebrengt.

Op haar debuutalbum heeft Julia Hwang dit idee – van virtuositeit als communicatie – opgepakt, en grijpt het vanuit vier verschillende richtingen aan. Griegs Derde Vioolsonate vermengt virtuositeit met zowel lokale als internationale tradities, om iets helder persoonlijks te zeggen. Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending verfijnt viooltechniek tot expressie die zo puur is als het gezang van een leeuwerik. Lutoslawski’s Subito creëert een kort, verbijsterend moment wiens schittering zijn eigen betekenis is; en Henryk Wieniawski, entertainer bij uitstek, spint fantasie van de muziek van een ander in zijn Fantaisie brillante sur des motifs de l’Opéra Faust de Gounod, en verrijkt de motieven tijdens het proces.

Dit is het derde album van St Johns College, Cambridge, volgend op hun eerdere albums met koorwerken, die zijn geprezen door de critici.

Artist(s)

Julia Hwang (violin)

Julia gave her professional solo debut with the English National Baroque Chamber Orchestra at the age of nine, performing Bach's Concerto in A minor, and in the same year performed for legendary violinist Ivry Gitlis in London. She recorded two CDs at the ages of eleven and twelve, and, also at the age of twelve, performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Julia has been a veteran of the concert stage for many years and her numerous solo appearances with orchestras internationally have led to an ever-increasing schedule of concerts both in the UK and abroad. Julia has appeared many times on live television and radio through the BBC and ITV and, in 2012, she was featured in a BBC4 documentary about...

Julia has appeared many times on live television and radio through the BBC and ITV and, in 2012, she was featured in a BBC4 documentary about the nation’s favourite composition ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Her performance of this work was specifically chosen by the BBC to represent this timeless classic of the great British composer, and the documentary has been re-broadcast on many occasions due to popular demand. In 2015, she was appointed to be a cultural ambassador for the BRACE Alzheimer’s Society, alongside broadcasters Jonathan Dimbleby and Martyn Lewis. She has recently collaborated with Vadim Gluzman in Israel. Her latest CD, recorded in collaboration with Signum Classics, will be released in June 2017.

Other public and charity performances have included performing at the 2012 Violins of Hope music festival in North Carolina, USA, with world famous violinist Shlomo Mintz; a charity concert at Highgrove to raise funds for The Prince's Trust alongside cellist Julian Lloyd-Webber; and innumerable further concerts to raise money for, among others, The Alzheimer's Society, the NSPCC and MacMillan Cancer Relief.

Julia is an undergraduate at St. John's College, Cambridge. She began her violin studies with Richard Crabtree, and currently studies with Itzhak Rashkovsky in London.

She plays on a Peter Guarnerius of Mantua violin c.1698, on generous loan from the Alderson Trust.

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Charles Matthews (piano)

Composer(s)

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius and Antonín Dvořák did in Finland and Bohemia, respectively. Grieg is regarded as simultaneously nationalistic and cosmopolitan in his orientation, for although born in Bergen and buried there, he travelled widely throughout Europe, and considered his music to express both the beauty of Norwegian rural life and the culture of Europe as a whole. He is...

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions put the music of Norway in the international spectrum, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius and Antonín Dvořák did in Finland and Bohemia, respectively.
Grieg is regarded as simultaneously nationalistic and cosmopolitan in his orientation, for although born in Bergen and buried there, he travelled widely throughout Europe, and considered his music to express both the beauty of Norwegian rural life and the culture of Europe as a whole. He is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him.

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Henryk Wieniawski

Wieniawski was a Polish composer. Even though he came from a jewish family, his father converted to catholocism. Wieniawski's violin talent was quickly discovere, in 1843 he attended the conservatory of Paris at the age of 8. After he graduated, Wieniawski went on tour giving many recitals. He was often accompanied by his brother, Józef. In 1847, he published his first work, the Grand Caprice Fantastique. On invitation by Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg where he stayed until 1872. There, he taught a large number of violin students, led the Russian Musical Society's orchestra and string quartet. Fro, 1872 to 1874, Wieniawski toured throughout the United States together with Rubinstein and in 1875, he replaced Henri Vieuxtemps as a violin teacher at the conservatory of...

On invitation by Anton Rubinstein, Wieniawski moved to St. Petersburg where he stayed until 1872. There, he taught a large number of violin students, led the Russian Musical Society's orchestra and string quartet. Fro, 1872 to 1874, Wieniawski toured throughout the United States together with Rubinstein and in 1875, he replaced Henri Vieuxtemps as a violin teacher at the conservatory of Brussels. In Brussels, his health declined fast, which at one time forced him to stop a performance midway through. He gave his farewell concert in 1879. A year later he died from a heart attack in Moscow.

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Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer and folk song collector. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over nearly fifty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.
He wrote many works for amateur and student performance. He was musically a late developer, not finding his true voice until his late thirties; his studies in 1907–08 with the French composer Maurice Ravel helped him clarify the textures of his music.
Vaughan Williams is among the best-known British symphonists, noted for his very wide range of moods, from stormy and impassioned to tranquil, from mysterious to exuberant. Among the most familiar of his other concert works are Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and The Lark Ascending (1914). His vocal works include hymns, folk-song arrangements and large-scale choral pieces. He wrote eight works for stage performance between 1919 and 1951. Although none of his operas became popular repertoire pieces, his ballet Job: A Masque for Dancing (1930) was successful and has been frequently staged.

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Witold Lutosławski

Due to his early orchestral works based on folk music (Symphonic Variations for Orchestra). Witold Lutoslawski is claled the Polish Bartók from time to time. However, perhaps ironically it was in his Musique Funèbre À La Mémoire Béla Bartók (1958) that he truly broke new ground. A radio broadcast of John Cage's Concerto for Piano made a large impression on him. Inspired by him, he decided to give more freedom to the performers in some parts of his compositions. With that, Lutoslawski was settled among the Polish avant-garde in a blow, along with Penderecki and Panufnik. Some large-scale caleidoscopic compositions such as his Second Symphony and his Livre Pour Orchestre made use of a hallucinating richness of sound. In the same time, Lutoslawski composed major vocal...

Due to his early orchestral works based on folk music (Symphonic Variations for Orchestra). Witold Lutoslawski is claled the Polish Bartók from time to time. However, perhaps ironically it was in his Musique Funèbre À La Mémoire Béla Bartók (1958) that he truly broke new ground. A radio broadcast of John Cage's Concerto for Piano made a large impression on him. Inspired by him, he decided to give more freedom to the performers in some parts of his compositions. With that, Lutoslawski was settled among the Polish avant-garde in a blow, along with Penderecki and Panufnik. Some large-scale caleidoscopic compositions such as his Second Symphony and his Livre Pour Orchestre made use of a hallucinating richness of sound. In the same time, Lutoslawski composed major vocal cycles, akin to Ravel's and Debussy's music. He continued to refer to the French music tradition by composing in a free, refined style such as in his Paroles Tisées (1965), Les Espaces Du Sommeil (1975) and the charming cycle Chantefleurs Et Chantefables (1990).

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