Tianwa Yang, Markus Hadulla - Sarasate – Music for Violin & Piano, Vol. 3 (2012)

Anyone interested in stunning violin artistry should buy this amazing disc straightaway. It’s one of the best things I’ve heard in a long time. I hadn’t come across Tianwa Yang’s Sarasate series for Naxos before but I will certainly search out the other discs as a matter of some urgency. Her playing is simply extraordinary - no wonder she’s been described as “A Pride of China”. This isn’t one of those flashy, hollow, 20-notes-a-second recitals that quite frankly drive me to distraction. You know the sort of thing, the ones that are all about technique and nothing to do with music. This playing is supremely musical. Dazzling, all the same, but it’s the musicianship that’s the primary focus. Tianwa Yang’s sound is beautiful. At no point in this 79 minute programme is there a hint of strain. The tone remains perfect even during the harmonics, double-stopping passages and those dazzling displays of bowing contained in the fiendishly difficult Fantaisie-Caprice. All the notes are perfectly in place but it’s all so lyrical, sensitively shaped and touching. Intonation is impeccable. It really is that good.

Many of the works on the disc are new to me. Sarasate has certainly written some really memorable, tuneful pieces. I will regularly return to them again. He’s Spain’s answer to Paganini in terms of his accomplishment as a violinist. Listening to his music, I find it more enjoyable and elegant than that of Paganini. It’s obviously very taxing from a technical standpoint. On the other hand it never reaches the point where you feel that the writing is right on the edge of becoming unplayable with those uncomfortable sounds that can emanate even from the bows of the world’s finest players. I am thankful that Ms Yang, very ably supported by Markus Hadulla, has committed this wonderful music to record. There’s a great variety in Sarasate’s writing, ranging from the dazzling virtuosity of Fantaisie-Caprice to the lyrical elegance of Boléro and the singing melodic inspiration to be found in Rêverie and Prière et berceuse.

The recording is warm, detailed and resonant with a nice, beefy piano sound. A joy to listen to in fact.