ARCHANGEL!
LOS ANGELES --Violin virtuoso Judith Aller makes her American recording debut on the USA Music Group label with ARCHANGEL!, a stunning selection of the Opus 5 violin sonatas by the great Italian Baroque master, Arcangelo Corelli, While remarkable musically, this compact disc also offers a full, rich sound, distinctive among classical recordings of the solo violin.
Ms. Aller calls the Corelli sonatas "music that exists outside of time." Listeners will understand what she means by that by taking a random sampling of the works by Corelli, the archangel of the violin, included on this CD. There is a kind of timeless quality to the music. The dignity, grace and feeling of the adagio movements and the bright allegros in the style of dances of that time are as beautiful today as when Corelli himself played them three centuries ago for his Roman audiences, and three centuries from now they will stir listeners in the same way. Such beauty endures.
She begins with "Folies d' Espagne", Corelli's Sonata number 12. With its difficult variations, it has long been a repertoire staple with violin virtuosos both in Europe and in America. She plays it in the even more difficult Leopold Auer arrangement, the first time it has been recorded. Following it are Corelli's Sonatas numbers 1, 3, 6, and 10. The last item on the program is another virtuoso piece, "Variations of a Theme by Corelli”, by Fritz Kreisler, which she plays with authority and fire as a coda to Sonata number 10, from which Kreisler drew his theme.
After studying three years with Jascha Heifetz and making her American debut, Judith Aller married a Finnish musician and relocated to Finland. There she served as concertmaster, soloist, and assistant conductor with the Pori Symphony Orchestra; soloed and toured with the Finnish Radio Symphony; recorded; and taught at the famed Sibelius Academy. Returning to America, she performed as principal and frequent soloist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra. She has played literally hundreds of dates as a studio musician for motion pictures, television, and commercial recordings. She now divides her time between Paris and Los Angeles.
About the recording of this compact disc: It was recorded in a single day, July 26, 1996, at Conway Studios, Hollywood, California on a modified Neve VR 72 console, using vintage tube microphones directly to an Ampex ATR102 half-inch, two-track machine. The violin was miked with a Telefunken 251 and a Neuman U47. The piano was miked with a pair of Schoeps CMC5U's. A pair of Neuman U67's were used as ambient microphones.
Terry Becker was the engineer. Doug Michael served as assistant engineer. The recording was mastered by Alan Yoshida at A&M Mastering, Hollywood.
The cover painting for the album is by Joe Garnett.
— Bruce Alexander |
