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1 CD
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€ 19.95
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| Label Signum Classics |
UPC 0635212065228 |
Catalogue number SIGCD 652 |
Release date 04 December 2020 |
The first-class pairing of Charlie Siem and Itamar Golan release their debut album with Signum; Between the Clouds invites the listener into a Parisian-styled ‘salon’ for an intimate performance of classic pieces for violin and piano.
Featuring pieces by Wieniawski (known for his Gallic elegance and Slavonic fire); the ‘wunderkind’ Godowsky; the Viennese master Friedrich (Fritz) Kreisler; the virtuosic Niccolò Paganini, and the mighty Sir Edward Elgar, this is certainly not one to be missed.
Charlie Siem is one of today’s foremost young violinists, with such a wide-ranging diversity of cross-cultural appeal as to have played a large part in defining what it means to be a true artist of the 21st century.
Born in London to a Norwegian father and British mother, Siem began to play the violin at the age of three after hearing a broadcast of Yehudi Menuhin playing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. He received a broad and thorough education at Eton College, before completing the intellectually demanding undergraduate degree programme in Music at the University of Cambridge. From 1998 to 2004 he studied the violin with Itzhak Rashkovsky in London at the Royal College of Music, and from 2004 he has been mentored by Shlomo Mintz.
Siem has appeared with many of the world’s finest orchestras and chamber ensembles, including the Bergen Philharmonic, Camerata Salzburg, Czech National Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, London Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He has worked with top conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Edward Gardner, Zubin Mehta, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Roger Norrington, Libor Pešek and Yuri Simonov. International festival appearances to date include Spoleto, St. Moritz, Gstaad, Bergen, Tine@Munch, Festival Internacional de Santa Lucía, and the Windsor Festival. Siem’s regular sonata partner is renowned pianist Itamar Golan.
Highlights of the previous seasons included concerto debuts in Mexico, Munich, and Milan; recitals in Norway with Itamar Golan; a debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Maestro Charles Dutoit; and an eight-concert debut recital tour of Australia, culminating with a performance at the Sydney Opera House. Charlie Siem enjoys a strong presence in China, where during the 2016/2017 season he was named Cultural Ambassador of Nanjing, and gave fifteen concerts at major venues across the country (including Beijing, Harbin, Nanjing, Shanghai, Xiamen, and Xuzhou), a tour of the Bruch concerto with the Israel Philharmonic an Maestro Zubin Mehta ; Siem’s USA concerto debut ( Sibelius Concerto with Jacksonville Symphony and Music Director Courtney Lewis) ; a tour with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra; and a South American recital tour with Itamar Golan.
Charlie Siem has a varied discography and has made a number of recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra (Warner Classics, 2011) and Münchner Rundfunkorchester (Sony Classical, 2014).
A great believer in giving to worthwhile causes, Siem is an ambassador of The Prince’s Trust. He is also a Visiting Professor at Leeds College of Music in the UK and Nanjing University of the Arts in China. He gives masterclasses around the world at top institutions such as the Royal College of Music in London, and the Accademia di Musica in Florence.
Passionate about bringing classical music to new audiences around the world, in addition to his classical performance career Siem has revived the age-old violinistic tradition of composing virtuosic variations of popular themes, which he has done alongside artists including Bryan Adams, Jamie Cullum and The Who In 2014, he wrote his first composition – Canopy, for solo violin and string orchestra – which was commissioned by USA television station CBS Watch!, and recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra. Siem has also had numerous collaborations with fashion brands including Armani, Chanel, Dior, Dunhill, and Hugo Boss.
Charlie Siem plays the 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin, known as the ‘D’Egville’.
Benjamin Britten is one most important British composers from the second half of the twentieth century. Remarkably, he focused on opera, a dying genre, at least in its current form. Britten's contributions however, among which Peter Grimes, The Rape of Lucretia, Gloriana, The Turn of the Screw, and Death in Venice, managed to remain core repertoire for opera companies to this day. Many of these productions included a role for his artistic partner and life companion Peter Pears. Britten also wrote a number of lieder for this tenor, among which his Serenade for tenor, horn and string orchestra. Yet, Britten excelled in many more genres. He wasn't even 20 years old when he composed his brilliant Phantasy for hobo quartet and his friendship with the legendary cellist Rostropovich led to a Cello sonata, three Suites for cello solo and a Symphony for Cello and orchestra in the 1960s.
Britten never became Master of the Queen's Music, yet he surely had feeling for public sentiments. For example, as a pacifist, he taught his people about world peace through his War Requiem from 1962. Britten was an excellent interpreter of his own work, just like Bartók and Stravinsky. Many of his recordings have been matched, but never exceeded.
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 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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