Kim Kashkashian - Cto Viola & Orch / Replica Viola & Orch / Movement - Music & Performance - CD

This disc was nominated for the 2000 Gramophone magazine award for "Best

If the Viola Concerto is a neglected issue among Bartﾢk's compositions, it is because of its stepchild status. Commissioned by William Primrose, the concerto was left unfinished when Bartﾢk died in 1945, and while a substantial three-movement structure existed, the work remaining to be done was far more than merely cosmetic. Hungarian composer Tibor Serly undertook the task of completing it and Primrose finally gave the premiere in 1949.

Violist Kim Kashkashian is a most persuasive advocate for this piece, as she and conductor Peter Eﾔtvﾔs seem finely attuned to the peculiar twilight world of interrupted dances and wistful songs that run through it. Eﾔtvﾔs' own composition, 'Replica,' dwells in a more sinister atmosphere, with striking bass sonorities underpinning high string clusters and swooping glissandi to disconcerting effect while the viola soloist reacts in agitated fashion, an expressionistic protagonist in a post-Bergian horror movie. Then Gyﾔrgy Kurtﾠg's graduate essay, Movement for Viola and Orchestra, takes us full circle, back to the world of Bartﾢk which it so reverently echoes.