Gabriela Demeterová, Prague Chamber Orchestra, Milan Lajcík - Vranický, Pichl & Benda: Violin Concertos (2009)

Benda, Pichl, Vranický – three superb violinists, composers and chapel masters who worked in the services of the nobility and the King. All three of them can be called ambassadors of Czech musicality in the Europe of the time. Their journeys led from Prague and Brno to the major European musical centres (Dresden, Vienna, Milan, Warsaw, etc.) and encountering the greatest composers of the time – Mozart, Haydn, C. P. E. Bach, Quantz and Zelenka.

Their oeuvre spans the style and forms of late Baroque to high Classicism. However, in the field of the violin concerto they could demonstrate to the full their compositional invention and virtuosity, so great as to remain a challenge to present-day performers.

Remarkable too is the mastery and bird’s-eye view with which the charming violinist Gabriela Demeterová squared up to this challenge on this CD. Even such virtuosos as the three composers in question would be hard to put to find fault with this splendid interpretational performance. And, even the most renowned virtuosos of Classicism would probably envy her the video clip attached to the recording.