Search - Michelle Makarski, Thomas Larcher :: Elogio Per Un'Ombra

This is a most unusual recording. The composers, past and present, Italian and American, have all exerted some kind of musical or personal influence on one another. The program is mostly 20th century, but it's framed by Baroque works, concluding with an anonymous Italian 14th-century lament, and opening with three movements of Tartini's Sonata No. 7 in A minor for solo violin. The very long fourth movement is a theme with 21 variations; Makarski selects and intersperses several of these between the other works as a thread connecting the old and the new. The movement is thought to have inspired composers as diverse as Paganini and Dallapiccola to write variations of their own. The disc recalls certain characteristics of Makarski's earlier ECM recording, Caoine. It is named after one of the pieces; it revisits George Rochberg's 52 "Caprice variations" on Paganini's 24th Caprice, but presents different variations; the program is extremely demanding and mostly unaccompanied, and the playing is admirable. Makarski's flawless technique is entirely at the service of the music; her tone is beautiful, austere, pure, and variable; her concentrated expressiveness and stylistic empathy are complete and never falter. --Edith Eisler