To Roman Totenberg by Nathan Meltzer

Various composers

Nathan Meltzer

To Roman Totenberg

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Champs Hill
UPC: 5060212591685
Catnr: CHRCD 161
Release date: 05 February 2021
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Label
Champs Hill

UPC
5060212591685

Catalogue number
CHRCD 161

Release date
05 February 2021

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Rising star violinist Nathan Meltzer releases his debut recording: an homage to Roman Totenberg recorded on the famous ‘Ames, Totenberg’ Stradivarius violin (1734).

The Ames Totenberg violin was famously stolen from Professor Totenberg in 1980 and recovered by the FBI some 35 years later from a California basement.Totenberg’s daughters arranged for the instrument to be restored and sold to an anonymous buyer. Nathan Meltzer became its proud custodian in October 2018, beginning a new chapter in its history.

For his debut album, made together with pianist Rohan De Silva, Meltzer has recorded a selection of Professor Totenberg's favourite pieces, including the Wieniawski Polonaise and Szymanowski Arethusa, which Totenberg performed for President Roosevelts at a White House recital in 1936.

“For my first album, I wanted to give an admiring nod to the great teacher and virtuoso violinist Roman Totenberg, whose memory I hope to honour as the current guardian of his beloved violin. It has been amazing to play the Ames,Totenberg Stradivarius, and not just because a lot of people want to hear it again. After all those years locked in the basement, the instrument is opening up and finding its voice – in a way, evolving.

Likewise, with this recording, I wanted to illustrate the generational evolution of music and the people who perform it, striking a balance between my own sensibilities and the heritage of this wonderful instrument. The mix of composers includes Szymanowski and Wieniawski, who Roman Totenberg championed and performed frequently; Bartók, who he played brilliantly and I hold close to my heart; and Bach and Franck, whose sonatas are staples of the repertory and move me deeply.”

Artist(s)

Rohan De Silva (piano)

Pianist Rohan De Silva was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and has collaborated with violin virtuosos Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin, Joshua Bell, Anne Akiko Meyers, Kurt Nikkanen, Gil Shaham, Kyoko Takazawa, Vadim Repin, and Midori. These partnerships have led to highly acclaimed performances at recital venues all over the world. With these and other artists he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall, the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Philadelphia Academy of Music, Ambassador Theater in Los Angeles, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and La Scala in Milan and Tel-Aviv, Israel. His festival appearances include the Aspen, Interlochen, Manchester, Ravinia and Schleswig-Holstein festivals, the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and the Wellington Arts Festival in New Zealand. He performed at the White House in 2007 for President George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth, and in 2012 with Perlman for President Barak Obama and Shimon Peres. He has also appeared on television on The Tonight Show with Midori; and on radio stations WQXR, WNYC, and WNCN, as well as the Berlin Radio and Japan’s NHK.

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Nathan Meltzer (violin)

Recipient of the 2020 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and youngest ever to win the Windsor Festival International String Competition, Nathan has been a soloist with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Aalborg, Berlin, Concepción, Evansville, Indianapolis, Medellín, and Pittsburgh orchestras, among others, performing in Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, the UK, and across the US. As a recitalist and chamber musician, Nathan has performed at ChamberFest Cleveland, Giardini La Mortella, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Krzyżowa Festival, the Moritzburg Festival, the Musical de l’Orne, the Perlman Chamber Workshop, and the Verbier Festival Academy. He has been a concert artist with Omega Ensemble since 2016. Nathan’s 2020-21 season includes the release of his...

As a recitalist and chamber musician, Nathan has performed at ChamberFest Cleveland, Giardini La Mortella, the Heidelberger Frühling, the Krzyżowa Festival, the Moritzburg Festival, the Musical de l’Orne, the Perlman Chamber Workshop, and the Verbier Festival Academy. He has been a concert artist with Omega Ensemble since 2016.

Nathan’s 2020-21 season includes the release of his debut CD with Rohan De Silva, appearances with the Adelphi and Hull Philharmonic orchestras, and the launch of Opus Illuminate, an online concert series dedicated to the works of composers from underrepresented communities.

Nathan studies with Itzhak Perlman and Li Lin at Juilliard. He performs on the “Ames, Totenberg” Antonio Stradivari violin, Cremona 1734, generously on long-term loan from Rare Violins In Consortium, Artists and Benefactors Collaborative.

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Composer(s)

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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Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He enriched established German styles through his skill in counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and the adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions, and hundreds of cantatas. His music is revered for its technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual depth. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest in and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century. He is now generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

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Béla Bartók

Next to Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók was a third seminal innovator of European art music at the start of the twentieth century. Bartók, too, sought a way out of the deadlock of tonal music around 1900, and he found it in folk music. Initially, he tied in with the nationalistic tradition of Franz Liszt with his tone poem Kossuth, but eventually he found his own voice with the rediscovery of the music of Hungarian peasants. Together with Zoltán Kodály he was one of the first to apply the results of folkloric research into his own compositions. One major difference between him and composers of the 19th century, was that Bartók did not adjust to the system of tonality, but created his own musical idiom from folk music. Because of this, his composition style was flexible to other musical trends, without having to violate his own view points. For example, his two Violin sonates come close to Schoenberg's free expressionism, and after 1926 his music started to show neoclassicistic tendencies, comparable to Stravinsky's music. Bartók was not just interested in Hungarian folk music, but could appreciate musical folklore from all of the Balkan, Turkey and North-Africa as well.

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César Franck

César Franck was simultaneously a child prodigy and a late bloomer. His parents quickly discovered his enormous talent, but they were mostly interested in the money and fame that he might generate. Because of this, he was presented as a piano virtuoso, without a focus on composition. Unfortunately, his virtuoso career was less promising then they had hoped, and he started earning his money more as a teacher and organist. Composing stayed in the background, but in the mean time he did get some notable students, such as Henri Duparc. After a while, a sort of "Franck school" of students arose, albeit against his will, who affectionately called him ‘Pater seraphicus’. It was not until he was 50 before he started to receive some acclaim as a composer, and from his 52nd he started a very prolific period, lasting until his death at the age of 68.
Nowadays, Franck is mostly known for his instrumental music, peaking at the famous Violin Sonata in A. Besides this work,, his small collection of organ works was particularly influential.

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Karol Szymanowski

Karol Szymanowski was a Polish composer and pianist, the most celebrated Polish composer of the early 20th century. He is considered a member of the late 19th-/early 20th-century modernist movement Young Poland and widely viewed as one of the greatest Polish composers.
The early works show the influence of the late Romantic German school as well as the early works of Alexander Scriabin, as exemplified by his Étude Op. 4 No. 3 and his first two symphonies. Later, he developed an impressionistic and partially atonal style, represented by such works as the Third Symphony and his Violin Concerto No. 1. His third period was influenced by the folk music of the Polish Górale people, including the ballet Harnasie, the Fourth Symphony, and his sets of Mazurkas for piano. King Roger, composed between 1918-1924, remains the most popular opera by Szymanowski. His other significant works include opera Hagith, Symphony No. 2, The Love Songs of Hafiz, and Stabat Mater.
He was awarded the highest national honors, including the Officer's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and other distinctions, both Polish and foreign.[1]

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