Mendelssohn: Works for Violin and Piano Marc Bouchkov, Claire Huangci, Kammerorchstra Basel & Howard Griffiths

• Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847): Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D Minor:
• 1 Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D Minor: I. Allegro 18:55
• 2 Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D Minor: II. Adagio 08:48
• 3 Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D Minor: III. Allegro molto 09:05
• Violin Sonata in F Minor, Op. 4:
• 4 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Minor, Op. 4: I. Adagio - Allegro moderato 07:39
• 5 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Minor, Op. 4: II. Poco adagio 07:24
• 6 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Minor, Op. 4: III. Allegro agitato 04:50
• Violin Sonata in F Major (1st version, 1838):
• 7 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Major (1st version, 1838): I. Allegro vivace 09:44
• 8 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Major (1st version, 1838): II. Adagio 06:53
• 9 Mendelssohn: Violin Sonata in F Major (1st version, 1838): III. Assai vivace 05:50
• Total Runtime 01:19:08

Info for Mendelssohn: Works for Violin and Piano

Bis an die Grenzen des Virtuosen: „Mendelssohn ist eine Herausforderung, weil seine Musik trügerisch einfach erscheint“, so die Pianistin Claire Huangci, wenn sie über ihr neues Album spricht. Zusammen mit dem Geiger Marc Bouchkov hat sie Werke von Mendelssohn für Geige und Klavier eingespielt: die beiden Violinsonaten in F – einmal Dur, einmal Moll – und das Doppelkonzert in d-Moll. Ihnen zur Seite stehen bei letzterem der arrivierte Howard Griffiths und das Basler Kammerorchester. Ein kontrastreicher Blick in Mendelssohns Schaffen und die Vielseitigkeit dieser Kombination: „Einerseits sind Witz und Brillanz gefragt, andererseits muss man aber unter dieser Fassade auch die tiefere Bedeutung etwa von Trauer, Mitgefühl und Noblesse finden, und das ist auf den ersten Blick nicht leicht zu erkennen. Der junge Mendelssohn hat so ein Gespür für das Dramatische.“

Howard Griffiths, der für die Orpheum Stiftung und ihr Förderprogramm die Interpretenauswahl dieser Einspielung verantwortet, ist insbesondere mit Claire Huangci schon lange freundschaftlich verbunden: „Claire hat die Affinität zu dieser Musik. Die meisten jungen Pianisten spielen wunderbar Rachmaninow, Chopin, die großen Romantiker. Oft fehlt ihnen aber etwas bei Mozart oder auch Mendelssohn. Bei Claire ist das nicht der Fall. In den mehr als zehn Jahren, in denen ich ihre Karriere nun schon begleite, hat sie eine außergewöhnliche Fähigkeit entwickelt, in ihrem Spiel zu transportieren, was zwischen den Noten passiert; die nicht offensichtlichen, die versteckten Dinge.“ Marc Bouchkov ist ihr Match made in heaven: „Er ist ein hervorragender Geiger und hat einen ausgeprägten Sinn für Klang und musikalische Aspekte.“ Dieser beschreibt seine Herangehensweise, insbesondere an das Doppelkonzert: „Viel Arbeit am Kern des Klangs, wie es das Singen erfordern würde. Die Romantik meines Spiels kommt erst nach der strengen Arbeit am Klang und natürlich an der Intonation. Wie ich einmal gelernt habe, muss das Vibrato aus dem Herzen kommen. Bei dieser Aufnahme war mein Herz wirklich erfüllt von Mendelssohns Musik.“

Dass Mendelssohns Œuvre für Violine und Klavier bis heute recht wenig Beachtung findet, kommt Marc Bouchkov und Claire Huangci durchaus zugute: „Wenn man immer das große bekannte Repertoire spielt, wird man gleich mit bedeutenden Vorgängern verglichen“, gibt Howard Griffiths zu bedenken. „Mit dieser Aufnahme können die beiden diesen fantastischen Werken ihren persönlichen Stempel aufdrücken.“ Und damit überzeugen sie auf ganzer Länge. „Die Arbeit mit Marc an diesen Stücken war erhellend“, resümiert Claire Huangci, „Der letzte Satz der F-Dur-Sonate hat uns fast umgebracht, weil wir beide bis an die Grenzen des virtuosen Spiels gegangen sind.“

Claire Huangci, Klavier
Marc Bouchkov, Violine
Kammerorchester Basel
Howard Griffiths, Leitung

Marc Bouchkov
Bouchkov’s artistry is driven by expression. His violin playing is grounded not only in a thorough knowledge of the score, the historical content and the authenticity of the interpretation, but also in his belief that performance is a way to communicate directly with his listeners. The closeness of the violin’s sound to the human voice is his inspiration for expressing feelings and emotions in music, turning these into a musical experience for the audience.

Marc Bouchkov was born in 1991 into a family of musicians. He received his first lessons at the age of five from his grandfather, Mattis Vaitsner. His first public appearance was just one year later. In 2001, he joined Claire Bernard’s studio at the Lyon Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique; he transferred to the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique (CNSM) in 2007. There, he began studies with Boris Garlitzky, who has been his mentor ever since, and offers him invaluable guidance for honing his craft. The following years saw participation in masterclasses and invitations to festivals in Moulin d’Andé, Troyes, and Bordeaux (France), Viterbo (Italy) and New Hampshire (USA).

Marc Bouchkov’s artistic development has been marked by numerous international prizes and awards. He won First Prize at the highly regarded Henri Koch International Violin Contest, as well as at the 2010 European Young Concert Artists Audition in Leipzig. That same year, he received the First Prize for Violin with Special Distinction from the Jury at the CNSM Paris; the prestigious Ebel Prize followed in 2011. In 2012, he was a finalist and award-winner at the 2012 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. In 2013, he won First Prize at the Montreal International Music Competition, and was named an award-winner of the Juventus Foundation created by Georges Gara.

As a concert artist, Marc Bouchkov has enjoyed a rapidly growing career. Alongside numerous recitals in Hamburg, at the Montpellier Festival, at the Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, at the International Musical Olympus Festival in St Petersburg and in Montreal, his collaborations with orchestras such as the National Orchestra of Belgium, the Liège Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Filharmonia Lodz, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie are becoming ever more extensive.

Claire Huangci
The young American pianist Claire Huangci, winner of the first prize and the Mozart prize at the 2018 Geza Anda Competition, continuously captivates audiences with her “radiant virtuosity, artistic sensitivity, keen interactive sense and subtle auditory dramaturgy” (Salzburger Nachrichten). With an irrepressible curiosity and penchant for unusual repertoire, she proves her versatility with a wide range in repertoire spanning from Bach and Scarlatti, to Bernstein, Gulda, and Corigliano.

In solo recitals and with international orchestras, Claire has appeared in some of the most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall Tokyo, NCPA Beijing, Paris Philharmonie, Munich Gasteig, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Salzburg Festspielhaus, and the Budapest Franc Liszt Akademie. She is a welcome guest in renowned festivals including Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival, Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Klavier Festival Ruhr. Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, ORF Radio Orchester Vienna, Vancouver Symphony, and China Philharmonic Orchestra, together with Sir Roger Norrington, Howard Griffiths, Eva Ollikainen, Mario Venzago, Cornelius Meister, and Elim Chan are among her esteemed musical partners.

For an intense start of the 2020/21 season, Claire paid homage to Beethoven’s anniversary with a compelling interpretation of his Pastorale symphony arranged for solo piano by Franz Liszt, with concerts at the Klavier-Festival Ruhr and the Rheingau Musik Festival, where her recital was recorded for T-Mobile‘s streaming platform MagentaMusik 360. After appearances as a piano duo with Alexei Volodin at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and the release of a new album with her Trio Machiavelli, a major highlight is her Fall 2020 recital tour at the main halls of Berlin Philharmonie, and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Later in the season, a further exciting debut takes place in the „Great Performers Series“ at New York‘s Lincoln Center. Among her orchestra engagements are dates with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken, Museumsorchester Frankfurt, Basel Chamber Orchestra and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. With the Nordic Chamber Orchestra, she will direct concertos of Mozart and Chopin from the keyboard.

Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine with concert performances and competition successes. After studying with Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she moved to Germany in 2007 for further studies with Arie Vardi at the Hannover Musikhochschule, completing them with honors in 2016. Early in her artistic career, she stood out as an expressive interpreter of Chopin, winning first prizes at the Chopin competitions in Darmstadt and Miami in 2009 and 2010. She was also the youngest participant to receive second prize at the International ARD Music Competition in 2011.

After recording her debut CD with solo works of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and her prizewinning double album of Scarlatti sonatas (German Record Critics’ Award and Gramophone Editor’s Choice), she released highly acclaimed recordings of Chopin’s Nocturnes in 2017 and in 2018 of Rachmaninoff’s complete Préludes: Following recordings of Beethoven’s violin concerto in the piano version and Fantasy for piano and orchestra by Schubert / Kabalewski with the RSO Vienna, her first orchestral album of Chopin and Paderewski with the Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken under Shiyeon Sung was released in Fall 2019. In summer of 2020, her first chamber music album was released with Trio Machiavelli, whose interpretations of Ravel trio and Chausson piano quartet proved „a wholly exhilarating debut (…) splendidly transparent, and always expressive.“ (BR Klassik).

This album contains no booklet.