Gál, Kaminski & Bernstein: Violin Concertos Erez Ofer, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Frank Beermann & Omer Meir Wellber

• Hans Gál (1890 - 1987):
• 1 Concertino for Violin & Orchestra 17:52
• Joseph Kaminski (1903 - 1972): Violin Concerto:
• 2 Violin Concerto: I. Moderato 09:23
• 3 Violin Concerto: II. Adagio comme una elegia 06:10
• 4 Violin Concerto: III. Molto vivo 10:53
• Leonard Bernstein (1918 - 1990): Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”:
• 5 Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”: I. Phaedrus & Pausanias 06:37
• 6 Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”: II. Aristophanes 04:32
• 7 Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”: III. Eryximachus 01:34
• 8 Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”: IV. Agathon 06:46
• 9 Serenade After Plato’s “Symposium”: V. Socrates & Alcibiades 10:53
• Total Runtime 01:14:40

Info for Gál, Kaminski & Bernstein: Violin Concertos

This programme offers music for violin and orchestra by three composers of the 20th century whose common is Jewish origin. Two of them suffered from the consequences of the National Socialist oppression in pre-war Germany.

The composer, musicologist and music theorist Hans Gál (1890-1987), who was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had to resign as director of the Mainz Conservatory. He went to Great Britain and spent the rest of his life there.

Joseph Kaminski (1903-1972) was born in Odessa. The musically gifted boy began playing the violin at the age of six and played as a soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 12. He moved to Berlin in 1922 and studied there at the Musikhochschule (highly praised by the Berlin music critics), then to Vienna (1924), where he continued his studies with Hans Gál and others. He emigrated to Israel in 1937, where he joined the Palestine Orchestra (renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1948) as principal violinist.

The third composer on this album, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), had a very different start in life. The son of Jewish immigrants to the United States was born in Massachusetts in 1918. “Lenny” – as the world knew him – rose in the USA and then around the world to become a musical superstar.

Erez Ofer, who is thrilling with his brilliant virtuosity in this album, fascinates with his repertoire for violin!

"Three violin concertos by Jewish composers from the twentieth century show the development from the still romantic form to freer tonality with echoes from jazz and musical. All three works are both lyrical and virtuoso, so that they offer a rewarding task to the soloist. Erez Ofer and his orchestra, of which he is the concertmaster, demonstrate the subtleties of the works with a silky, noble sound. This is very appropriate for Gal’s Concertino, yet in Kaminski’s and Bernstein’s works, a more extrovert playing would not have been harmful." (pizzicato.lu)

Erez Ofer, violin
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
Frank Beermann, conductor
Omer Meir Wellber, conductor

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