Ernest BLOCH | Prayer from 'From Jewish Life' (1924)
Joaquin TURINA | Círculo Op. 91 (1936)
Sofia GUBAIDULINA | Silenzio (1991/2000)
Francis POULENC | Clarinet sonata (1962)
Antonin DVOŘÁK | Bagatelles Op.47 (1878)
Astor PIAZZOLLA | Le Grand Tango (1982), Ave Maria (1984), Oblivion (1984), Libertango (1974)
David Griffiths, clarinet; Dimity Hall, violin; Julian Smiles, cello; and guest artist James Crabb, accordion
‘The bagpipes were playing’, goes the Bohemian folksong used by Dvořák in his Bagatelles, where the accordion or harmonium helps establish a mood of simple joy in these charming vignettes of daily life in the countryside.
Joaquín Turina’s Círculo is a ‘poetic expression’ of a day in his native Spain, where sounds of morning give way to joyful singing before gradually returning to the calm of night, while Astor Piazzolla’s accordion-based music conjures the rich texture of life in Buenos Aires.
Ernest Bloch provides a vivid elegy for European Jewish life, his ‘Prayer’ developing the beautiful cantillation of an Ashkenazi synagogue on the Sabbath, where Sofia Gubaidulina’s visionary music in this unusual trio takes us to the mystical space where sound emerges from silence.
