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Label Challenge Classics |
UPC 0608917297829 |
Catalogue number CC 72978 |
Release date 22 March 2024 |
"It’s well played for sure; someone said once that the measure of a piece is whether musicians like to play it. (Maybe Reich again?) Judging from what I hear on this release, people enjoy playing it very much."
American Record Guide, 01-9-2024Daniel Rowland is a charismatic and adventurous violinist, director and chamber musician. With irrepressible energy, he musically intoxicates the musicians he plays with and those who listen to his performances and recordings. The members of his Stift Festival Orchestra mirror that energy and make this brilliant piece of Max Richter sound as cool, passionate, rough and intimate as it can be.
In a statement about 'Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons', Daniel declares that “it has been a huge pleasure to record these brilliantly imaginative, totally captivating and addictively energising seasons by Max Richter. I love the way the music morphs in and out of Vivaldi, using Vivaldi’s brilliantly colourful and endlessly evocative music as a springboard and inspiration for a new masterwork, brimming with electric energy and shimmering soundscapes very much of our time.”
Vivaldi's Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons) could easily be the most famous piece of classical music ever composed, one of the first examples of ‘program music’. It is in many ways a groundbreaking, radical piece - one that by its fame has, as Max Richter says, “become part of the musical landscape and a part of my daily life”. Max Richter (*1966) is London-based composer who deftly blurs the lines between the classical and electronic worlds. His ‘post-classical idiom’ draws inspiration from diverse influences. Despite discarding 75 percent of Vivaldi’s original material in his ‘Recomposed, The Four Seasons’, Max Richter considers the Italian composer’s musical DNA omni-present in his reworking of the material. Richter’s remodelled version retains the basic shape, and much of the spirit, of the master's original four violin concertos, each season about ten minutes long in total and in three movements, sequenced fast-slow-fast. Artfully, but faithfully, Richter rearranges the notes on the page, revealing anew the radiant melodies and lush timbres of the music, and transforming a piece dulled by over-familiarity into something luminously relevant to the present day.
Dutch/English violinist Daniel Rowland’s playing has been acclaimed as ‘wonderful, ravishing in its finesse’ by The Guardian and as ‘both naked and highly virtuosic’ by NRC Handelsblad, while The Herald praised his ‘astonishing sound and uniquely single-minded intensity’.
Daniel has established himself on the international scene as a highly versatile, communicative, charismatic and adventurous performer, with a broad repertoire from Vivaldi to Van der Aa. In recent seasons Daniel has performed with concertos ranging from Beethoven to Brahms, Elgar, Berg, Korngold, Weinberg and Prokofiev, with conductors such as Heinz Holliger, Jaap van Zweden, François-Xavier Roth, Lawrence Foster, Antony Hermus and Rossen Milanov. He is a passionate advocate of contemporary concertos such as Vasks, Lindberg, Glass, Saariaho, Nisinman and Van der Aa. Recently he premiered Isidora Zebeljan‘s Violin Concerto ‘Three Curious Loves’ and this autumn sees the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik‘s ‘Songs of Love and Friendship’ with the Dutch Radio Choir at the Concertgebouw. September 2020 sees the release of ‘Distant Light’, with violin concertos by Peteris Vasks (Challenge Records).
A passionate chamber musician, Daniel has performed with artists as diverse as Ivry Gitlis, Heinz Holliger, Martha Argerich, Michael Collins, Lars Vogt, Giovanni Sollima, Marcelo Nisinman, Willard White and Elvis Costello. Daniel is one half of acclaimed duo partnerships with pianist Natacha Kudritskaya with whom he earlier recorded for Champs Hill Records a disc dedicated to the Enescu Sonatas (‘a perfect partnership’ – BBC Music Magazine), and with cellist Maja Bogdanovic, whose recent duo CD ‘Pas de deux’ (Challenge Records) was described as ‘a magical meeting between violin and cello’ by Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad. In 2005 Daniel founded the Stift International Music Festival in the bucolic region of Twente in the eastern Netherlands, where he grew up, with the 15th century Stiftkerk as the main venue. The festival has garnered acclaim as one of great intimacy, adventure and atmosphere. Daniel was for twelve years the leader of the Brodsky Quartet, performing all over the world, and making numerous recordings, including the celebrated Shostakowitch Cycle.
Daniel was born in London, and started his violin lessons in Enschede after his parents moved to Twente in the eastern Netherlands. He studied with Jan Repko, Davina van Wely, Herman Krebbers, Viktor Liberman, Igor Oistrakh and Ivry Gitlis. His violin is by Lorenzo Storioni (Cremona 1796), and his bow is a Maline, kindly loaned by the Dutch Instrument Foundation. He teaches at the Royal College of Music in London. He lives in Amsterdam with his partner, cellist Maja Bogdanovic´.
It’s well played for sure; someone said once that the measure of a piece is whether musicians like to play it. (Maybe Reich again?) Judging from what I hear on this release, people enjoy playing it very much.
American Record Guide, 01-9-2024
I have to admit to a huge weakness for these Seasons—I never get tired of them! I think that with these Seasons, Max has struck gold, and I find them simply brilliant, colorful, exciting, and extremely effective, a total delight to both perform and listen to. And my three-year-old daughter wants to hear this CD all day!
- Daniel Rowland
STRINGS Magazine, 07-5-2024
...Rowland and his orchestra transform the music into something deeply human and affecting.
The Strad, 01-5-2024
Violinist Daniel Rowland does not shy away from a challenge and plays the newly composed 'Seasons' together with the Stift Festival Orchestra. (...) The themes from the original work are recognizable. But, you could also consider this version as a completely new and standalone work. In any case, it's fascinating to listen to.
Music Emotion, 16-4-2024
Daniel Rowland is a magnetic advocate in a bold interpretation that emphasises the flighty, bird-like quality of Richter's looped phrases with a headlong quality of abandon.
BBC Music Magazine, 16-4-2024
Rowland's love for this music is undeniable: the pleasure of performing shines through on this CD!
-Avrotros
AVROTROS, 10-4-2024
Recreating Vivaldi's the Four Seasons has been a challenge for many authors. Max Richter emerges successfully from the challenge, with an impressive Spring and Summer, with less artifice than expected. The best of the German.
Ritmo, 01-4-2024
Daniel Rowland is a huge fan of the piece and plays it here with Stift Festival Orchestra. It is certainly virtuosic and Rowland is an excellent advocate.
Trouw, 05-3-2024