This release features a selection of works written at the very beginning, and at the very end of Richard Strauss’ career. In a way, it’s not surprising at the consistency of style in these works. In those later years, Strauss became increasingly nostalgic for those earlier times. A good example is the Duett-Concertino for clarinet […]
Tasmin Little
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Tasmin Little Plays a Favorite
In a Violin Channel interview, Tasmin Little named Brahms as her favorite composer. I think that affection is evident in this release. There’s an easy familiarity in these performances I find quite appealing. The Violin Sonata No. 1 was developed from two earlier songs by Brahms. The lyrical nature of the material is at the […]
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Tasmin Little Plays Exceptional Music by Exceptional Women
Tasmin Little presents a solid program of late-Romantic violin works. As always, her performances let the emotional content of this music blossom forth in beauty. Little has done other outstanding recordings of this repertoire (her Brahms album springs to mind). She seems to have a natural affinity of the late-Romantic style. Oh – and all […]
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Tasmin Little and Piers Lane – Franck, Szymanowski, Fauré
In my previous reviews of Tasmin Little/Piers Lane recordings, I remarked on their chemistry, and how that transformed the music. It’s still in effect. Little and Lane perform as equal partners, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. César Franck’s Sonata is given an evocative and yet sometimes understated reading that seems well-suited to the […]
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Tasmin Little & Roxanna Panufnik – Four World Seasons
It’s an interesting program, coupling Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” with Roxanna Panufnik’s modern take on the same subject. And it’s one that works very well. The connective thread is the talent of violinist Tasmin Little. Little’s performance of the “Four Seasons” with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is a spirited one. Her solo work is beautifully crafted […]
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Tasmin Little – British Violin Sonatas Vol. 2
You don’t have to be Czech to play Dvorak, Spanish to play Rodrigo, nor British to play Vaughan Williams. And yet an artist who shares the composer’s nationality often brings a deeper understanding to the music, a certain authenticity to the performances. That thought occurred to me as I listened to British Violin Sonatas, Volume […]
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Tasmin Little – British Violin Sonatas
Tasmin Little’s off to a great start with her survey of British violin sonatas. Volume One features Howard Ferguson’s quintessentially British Violin Sonata No. 2, Benjamin Britten’s cosmopolitan Suite for Violin and Piano, and three works by William Walton that fall stylistically somewhere between. Tasmin Little plays them all with an expressive yet precise manner, […]