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  WINNER in the Chamber Music category of
the 2021 BBC British Music Magazine Awards.
     
CHANDOS
released May 2020

CHANDOS / Chan 20133

 
British Violin Sonatas, Volume 3

YORK BOWEN - Sonata, Op.112 (1945)
JOHN IRELAND - Sonata No.2 (1915-17)
JAMES FRANCIS BROWN - The Hart's Grace (2016)
WILLIAM ALWYN - Sonatina (1933)
ERIC COATES - First Meeting (1941, revised 1943)


CHANDOS / CHAN 20133



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REVIEWS:
GRAMOPHONE Magazine, June 2020
"... Little’s recording has an extrovert, feel-good factor, expressed in those long melodic lines she projects
so instinctively, eminently supported by Lane’s robust gestures...."
Jeremy Dibble
BBC Music Magazine, August 2020

British Violin Sonatas Volume 3 (Tasmin Little, Piers Lane)

From the tempestuous piano introduction to Bowen's Op. 112 Sonata, it's easy to see why he was dubbed ‘the English
Rachmaninov’. But there's alsoa more native turn of phrase in the lyrical passages, and the performers respond to both aspects of the music with muscular virtuosity and affection. Especially in the high tessitura of the slow movement,

Tasmin Little's tonal variety and rhythmic freedom capture the romantic outpouring, although I wish that she were sometimes more forward in the balance.

Ireland's Second Sonata is a more troubled work, written during the First World War. Harmonically sparer than the Bowen and more jagged in its melodic contours,it receives a performance which mirrors the conviction of the composer. Even the sustained passages have an undercurrent of sorrow and regret, and the playfulness which surfaces in the finale achieves only a limited victory. As its title suggests, Alwyn's Sonatina is on a more modest scale,

but still creates contrast in its three movements, with long-limbed melody in the initial Allegro, a more desolate central Adagio and a dancing finale. The performers always find time for the music, and that's equally true in the short works by Brown and Coates which leaven the recording. Martin Cotton
PERFORMANCE: *****
RECORDING: ****

 
LIMELIGHT Magazine, July 2020
British Violin Sonatas Volume 3 (Tasmin Little, Piers Lane)

Little and Lane steer a fine series to an equally fine conclusion.

by Brett Allen-Bayes on July 27, 2020

In this, the third and final instalment of an excellent series devoted to 20th-century British chamber works for violin and piano, the very fine violinist Tasmin Little has chosen to farewell with a lesser-known selection of works than in her previous instalments. Little has always been an enquiring musician who is always up for a challenge as those who have attended her local concerts will attest.

Those concerts have also attested to her love of British composers. Now considering retirement from the stage, Little has chosen to consolidate that love with a triptych of fine albums featuring the sympathetic pianism of Piers Lane – and here is a true partnership, rather than violinist and accompanist, as they set out to present rarer choices for the third album in this important set of recordings.

Firstly should be noted the world premiere recording of The Hart’s Grace (2016), a work of “dreamy intensity” written especially for Little by the contemporary composer, Francis Brown. Each of the three central works in this recital have had troubled histories and have remained underappreciated. Alwyn’s early Sonatina was disowned by the composer as juvenilia and yet has thankfully survived to receive this gracious performance. Similarly, York Bowen’s work remained little-known or appreciated until a couple of decades ago; and here he’s represented by his sonata, Op. 112, an intense and perhaps rather neurotic work from the 1940s. This contrasts well with Ireland’s Second Sonata, dating from the troubled 1910s.

These works are ideally suited to a player of Little’s character and commitment, and Piers Lane only adds to this intoxicating and often almost febrile mix.

All of these choices offer much to show the talents of these musicians, for Little is a giving player with a a passionate style and an enquiring mind; the perfect foil lies in her choice of pianist, Piers Lane and hopefully together the two of them, with this excellent recording, can re-present this overlooked music to an appreciative public. Now, can Chandos please release all three volumes as a set?

 
THE GUARDIAN / The Observer, May 2020

British Violin Sonatas Vol 3 review – Tasmin Little bows out in style

Tasmin Little (violin), Piers Lane (piano) (Chandos)
The much-loved violinist ends as she began, putting less familiar repertoire centre stage

After a career of three decades, the star violinist Tasmin Little may have had her farewell concert season thwarted – at least for now. Yet this final volume of British violin sonatas, with the pianist Piers Lane, offers abundant compensation. Little’s repertoire has always been extensive and inquisitive, her dedication to less familiar British repertoire a cornerstone of her career. Having featured works by Britten, Walton and Vaughan Williams, among others, on Volumes 1 and 2, she and Lane now include the world premiere recording of The Hart’s Grace by James Francis Brown (b1969), a work of dreamy intensity written for, and first performed by Little, in 2016.

William Alwyn’s early Sonatina (1933), disowned by the composer but luckily not destroyed, and Eric Coates’s delicious miniature, First Meeting, offer airy contrast to two weighty compositions: John Ireland’s stormy, impetuous Sonata No 2 with its poetic slow movement, premiered during the first world war; and York Bowen’s Sonata, Op 112, soaring and febrile, dating from the end of the second world war. Both suit Little’s openly expressive, romantic sound and fluid virtuosity: a generous player, she’s sure to find fresh outlets for her musical insights away from the concert platform. Let’s be glad she’s put this repertoire firmly back on the map.

 
 
MusicWeb International, May 2020
 

First, the sad part; this is the last of the Little-Lane duo’s conspectus of British violin sonatas, given the violinist’s imminent retirement. But now for the good news; at least they have finally recorded John Ireland’s Violin Sonata No.2 and it’s a real scorcher of a reading. But first, a brief recap. The opening volume in the series focused on Walton, Ferguson and Britten and the second on Bridge, Bliss and Ireland (Sonata No.1). Little has always resisted pressures to record works from her repertoire when circumstances have not been right – such as orchestras or conductors, for instance. But with Piers Lane, there is no such impediment and this duo has emulated and indeed surpassed in longevity that of another similar Anglo-Australian partnership, their great predecessors Albert Sammons and William Murdoch.

Their Ireland works so well because of its assured fusion of fieriness and seraphic nobility. The opening paragraphs gets a tremendously incisive interpretation, Lane cannily demarcating the rhythms, Little marking out the dynamic gradients. In terms of tempo relationships, it’s on a par with Paul Barritt and Catherine Edwards, now on Helios, another taut and assertive reading, though the Chandos team are weightier and tonally more vibrant performers. The forward pulse of this performance is never in doubt, the ruminative tolling motifs always brought out, the slow movement full of melancholy, its threnodic March aptly judged here. Little’s cantilena here is particularly beautiful. Phrasing from both musicians is just right, as it is in the finale – implacable but flexible, lyrical and dramatic.

York Bowen’s 1945 Sonata is the other large-scale work in the programme. Again, there are alternative recordings, though far fewer than the Ireland, of course, but once again it’s the sense of drama and finesse that sets the reading apart. In the maestoso first movement they are, for instance, significantly more trenchant than Rupert Luck (as he then was) and Matthew Rickard on EM Records, deftly though they play. The virtuosic ebb and flow of this chromatic and attractive music is explored with exemplary relish by Little and Lane and in the expressive stoicism of the slow movement, and the rollicking bravura of the finale, they really take the sonata by the scruff of its neck.

The smaller works are all cleverly characterised. William Alwyn’s Sonatina of 1933 has a delicious youthful freshness, a very expressive and chromatic central movement and a frolicsome finale – really giocoso in their hands. Finely though the competition play, on Stone and Naxos, this is the most vibrant reading. James Francis Brown’s The Hart’s Grace was composed in 2016 and after some initial restlessness it’s suffused with a tranquil grace; a delightful miniature. And Eric Coates’ First Meeting, written in 1941 for his son Austin’s 21st birthday, is a real charmer with which to end.

Mervyn Cooke’s helpful notes have been supplemented by Little’s performer’s note which makes for good reading. This is a tremendous disc, and shows how Little and Lane have continued to explore their repertoire, to hone and refine their interpretations, and to present the public with the bounty of their art.

Jonathan Woolf

 
 
 

released January 2020

 
Sir Eugene Goossens

Phantasy Concerto, Op.63 (1946-48, revised 1958)
for Violin and Orchestra

Symphony No.2, Op.62 (1942-45)

Solo: Tasmin Little violin

Orchestra: Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

Dale Barltrop • Sophie Rowell concertmasters

Conductor: Sir Andrew Davis

CHAN 5193

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REVIEWS:
The Strad Issue: March 2020
 


Benchmark recording of big-hitting but underrated 20th-century concerto


Tasmin Little (violin) Melbourne Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Davis
Goossens: Orchestral Works vol.3: Phantasy Concerto; Symphony no.2
CHANDOS CHSA5193 

Like Britten and Shostakovich before him, Eugene Goossens sets up a tension in his four-movement, symphonic Violin Concerto of 1948 that is only resolved at length by the finale. Walton’s Concerto of 1939 is the obvious point of contact, however, not only for the bittersweet orchestral harmony but also the glinting brilliance of its solo part, devised with Heifetz in mind, and now revived with all the requisite passion and assurance by Tasmin Little.

Goossens was not the first composer to find his efforts snubbed by Heifetz, however, and the concerto had to wait until 1959 for a radio broadcast premiere, followed by a live performance directed by the composer at the BBC Proms in 1960. A record of the occasion has surfaced on YouTube, and for all the old-school projection and cantabile phrasing of soloist Tessa Robbins, it can’t rival the urgency of Little’s opening statement, her spiccato passagework like shards of flying steel in the Scherzo or the stillness and Holstian desolation cultivated by both Little and Davis in the concise slow movement. Amid a shoal of so-called underrated English orchestral works of the last century, Goossens’s concerto is a big fish. I can’t imagine it done better.

The Second Symphony shares the concerto’s nervous, post-war intensity and Bartókian orchestration as well as its questing nature and conviction that old bottles may still hold a fine new vintage. The symphony would bring down the house at the Proms, especially directed by Davis, who knows the idiom inside out and secures a nimble, dynamic response from his Melbourne orchestra, recorded with ample depth and space in the concert hall at Monash University. Outstanding all round.

PETER QUANTRILL

 
Chandos Records
released May 2019

 
RICHARD STRAUSS

BURLESKE, TrV 145 (1885-86)
in D minor for Piano and Orchestra

ROMANZE, TrV 80 (1879)
in E flat major for Clarinet and Orchestra

DUETT-CONCERTINO, TrV 293 (1947)
for Clarinet and Bassoon with String Orchestra and Harp

VIOLIN CONCERTO, TrV 110 (1881-82)
in D minor for Violin and Orchestra

Solo bassoon
- Julie Price
Solo violin - Tasmin Little
Solo piano - Michael McHale

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Conductor: Michael Collins / clarinet

CHAN 20034

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REVIEWS:
The Strad Issue: July 2019
 


Lush, silken strings and a charming soloist in this Strauss collection

Tasmin Little (violin)1 Michael McHale (piano)2 Julie Price (bassoon)
3BBC Symphony Orchestra/Michael Collins (clarinet)

STRAUSS Violin Concerto in D minor1, Burleske2, Duett-Concertino3, Romanze4

CHANDOS CHAN 20034

With this new account appearing hot on the heels of Arabella Steinbacher’s recording (reviewed February 2019), Strauss’s Cinderella of a violin concerto seems to be winning new admirers among players. Tasmin Little brings her sweet tone and emotional commitment to this early work in an account that plays on the music’s charm and fleet-footedness. 

There’s a Mendelssohnian lightness, especially in the finale, that feels wholly appropriate, yet also a warmth to the first movement’s second theme and to the pensive central Lento. Just occasionally, Little’s generous vibrato on long, held notes tends towards the queasy, but her variety and richness of colouration, and her tonal flexibility across changing moods, prove to be ample compensation. 

The slightly boomy acoustic of LSO St Luke’s muddies the orchestral accompaniment to a certain extent, an issue that also affects the concertante works here for piano (the Burleske, where the crucial timpani lack crispness) and solo clarinet (the 15-year-old Strauss’s Romanze). But the Duett-Concertino, recorded on a later date at the BBC’s Maida Vale studios, fares better in terms of sound, and the strings of the BBC Symphony Orchestra provide silken and lush support for conductor/clarinettist Michael Collins and bassoonist Julie Price.

MATTHEW RYE


 
Chandos
released 1st February 2019
 
Tasmin Little plays Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth & Amy Beach

Tasmin Little, violin
John Lenehan, piano

AMY MARCY CHENEY BEACH
Sonata, Op.34 (1896)

CLARA SCHUMANN
Drei Romanzen, Op.22 (1853)

DAME ETHEL SMYTH
Sonata, Op.7 (c.1887)

AMY MARCY CHENEY BEACH
Romance, Op.23 (1893)
Invocation, Op.55 (1904)

CHAN 20030

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REVIEWS:
   
LIMELIGHT MAGAZINE - May 2019

BEACH • SMYTH • CLARA SCHUMANN (TASMIN LITTLE, JOHN LENEHAN)
Not-so-little women emerge from the shadows.

by Steve Moffatt on May 20, 2019

There seems to be a similar boon with the recent prominence of the gender equality debate – why it is still a ‘debate’ and not a fact remains a moot point – and women composers whose works were often admired by the musical giants of their time are slowly emerging from the gloom of neglect into some well-deserved sunlight.

English violinist Tasmin Little features three women composers on her latest disc for the prestige British Chandos label, accompanied by versatile UK pianist John Lenehan.

Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for violin and piano are well known and have appeared on several recordings. Dedicated to Joseph Joachim, they were written in the summer of 1853 when she and Robert moved into a house in Dusseldorf, which allowed her enough space to compose without disturbing her husband.

American composer and pianist Amy Marcy Cheney Beach (1867-1944) is perhaps the star of this album. Many consider her America’s best female composer and her Sonata for Violin and Piano turns up on a dozen or so recordings over the years, while that of Dame Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) – a campaigner for women’s suffrage who was championed by Clara Schumann and admired by Brahms, Grieg and Tchaikovsky among others, and who wrote literature when she became too deaf to compose – only appears on two recordings that I could find. Smyth studied in Leipzig and her String Quartet and this Sonata, dedicated to Mendelssohn’s daughter Lili Wach, were both performed at the Gewandhaus.

Coincidentally both sonatas are in A Minor and both are influenced by Brahms and Robert Schumann, but retain a strong individual voice. Beach’s talent for soaring lyricism is exploited not only in the sonata but also in two exquisite miniatures which close the disc – the Romance, Op 23, and Invocation, Op 55.

Little’s touch is warm and faultless throughout this lovely program and there is a strong chemistry between her and Lenehan.

Both Beach and Smyth composed large-scale works – including symphonies and operas – and after hearing this disc many listeners will want to explore their lives and music further. All credit to Little and Chandos for shining more sunlight on them.\

   
   
CLASSICAL SOURCE.com - March 2019
Tasmin Little & John Lenehan – Music by Amy Beach, Clara Schumann
and Ethel Smyth for violin and piano [Chandos]
by Tully Potter

Although the sole reason for this programme appears to be that all the composers were women, the Sonatas by Mrs H. H. A. Beach (strangely called here “Amy Marcy Cheney Beach”, of which more anon) and the young Ethel Smyth do go well together. They are both richly romantic works but for some reason neither has come my way before, although I have admired both of these redoubtable women for many years and have acquired records of other works by them. The recording team is virtually the same as the group who made Jennifer Pike’s Polish disc at the same venue two months later, but there is no sign of the imbalance between the instruments which marred that enterprise. Tasmin Little is well recorded and so is John Lenehan, who as always proves a strong yet tactful partner. He is nicely portrayed on the back cover of the booklet but has his name in smaller type on the front cover. I do wish record companies would not do this – the players in duo-Sonatas are equals.

Amy Marcy Cheney (1867-1944) first showed talent as a pianist, having begun lessons with her mother at six. Born in New Hampshire, she moved with her parents to the Boston area in 1875 and, rather than send her to a European conservatory, her parents arranged for home tuition – piano with Ernst Perabo and then Carl Baermann, harmony and counterpoint with Junius W. Hill. As a composer she was largely an auto-didact and amassed a formidable body of knowledge. Her public career as a pianist was largely curtailed when she married Dr Henry Harris Aubrey Beach in 1885: she agreed to give just two charity concerts a year and to refrain from teaching the piano. Her husband also baulked at her having composition lessons, hence her intense concentration on self-education. On the other hand Dr Beach seems to have happily indulged her composing, and she had success in a wide range of music. What particularly concerns us here is that she had a long and happy artistic relationship with America’s senior chamber ensemble, based in Boston as members of the Symphony and led by the Romanian Franz Kneisel. The Kneisel Quartet used to return to Europe every summer and on at least one occasion holidayed in the same place as Brahms. The group must have contributed to her artistic burgeoning – and incidentally her appearances with its members seem to have fallen outside the two charity concerts per annum stricture.

Mrs H. H. A. Beach was respected by her fellow Boston composers and had an honoured place in society. She seems to have loved her husband and was eventually buried next to him: after his death – he was twenty-four years older and died in 1910, not long before she also lost her mother – she was in deep grief and could not work, so tried moving to Europe and had successes in Germany before returning just after the start of the Great War. It was only during this brief period in Germany that she styled herself Amy Beach. Back in Boston, she resumed her established name, although she understandably had Amy Beach on her stationery. I mention all of this because since about the mid-1970s, American feminists have successfully campaigned to have this appellation accepted as the norm. This piece of history-rewriting overlooks the fact that without Dr Beach we would not have had most of her compositions – up to her marriage she had considered herself “a pianist first and foremost”. Chandos’s booklet note includes one or two errors and does not even mention her maiden name.

The Violin Sonata in A-minor is a mature composition. Mrs Beach wrote it in 1896, soon after her well-received Gaelic Symphony, and gave the first performance herself with Kneisel at a Kneisel Quartet subscription concert in 1897. The work had a lot of success and was even taken up by Ysaÿe and Pugno. The opening Allegro moderato in sonata form and the third movement, Largo con dolore, have a wistful character, almost as if the composer were gazing out of her window at the garden and daydreaming. It is the same nostalgic character that we meet in a lot of Elgar. In between is a delightful Scherzo with a slow Trio. The sonata-form Finale also partakes of the wistfulness but rises to ardent heights, and Mrs Beach apparently suggested some changes to that published, “the spirit of which is followed in this performance”. No, I do not know what that means, either! The Sonata is played magnificently by Little and Lenehan: there have been a number of previous recordings but I cannot imagine them being better.

Clara Schumann’s Three Romances were perhaps chosen because she befriended Ethel Smyth. Schumann (1819-6) was one of the great nineteenth-century pianists, a superb teacher and a penetrating critic. Her opinions were welcomed by her husband Robert, Brahms and others of their circle. I presume her ability to compose fed her analytical abilities but her works, even the one or two on a larger scale, do not suggest any great creative imagination. The second of her Romances could be mistaken for something by Robert, and the other two, while perfectly pleasant, do not quicken the pulse of this particular listener. They are played here affectionately and as well as you might expect.

The A-minor Sonata by Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) is another find. Written during her time in Germany, it was premièred in Leipzig in 1887 by Adolf Brodsky and Fanny Davies. Like Beach’s work it is in four movements with the Scherzo second; and it is possible, I suppose, that Beach knew it. Anyway, the two works are otherwise very different, even if they both exude the kind of Late-Romanticism that was in the air at the time. To begin with, Smyth’s Sonata is a more resolute affair, with a trenchantly bold air to the opening Allegro moderato and with interesting rhythmic devices. The Scherzo is quite brief but subtle. The E-minor Romanze refers to the passage in Dante’s Divine Comedy about Francesca da Rimini looking back to happier times, and here, in the violin’s beautiful cantilena, we find some of the wistfulness distilled by Beach. The players really tear into the Finale and in general do not put a foot wrong anywhere.

Little and Lenehan end with two more pieces by Beach. The fairly substantial six-minute Romance, specially written for the Women’s Musical Congress at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and dedicated to Maud Powell, was premièred there on 5 July by the composer and Powell. Beach had already composed a Festival Jubilate for the opening of the Woman’s Pavilion in 1892. The Romance is very well played here. Although Powell and Beach were friends, I cannot find that the great violinist ever played the Sonata, although she took the Romance into her repertoire. Little and Lenehan end with the four-minute Invocation of 1904, marked Adagio con elevazione and performed in that spirit.

GRAMOPHONE MAGAZINE - February 2019
Tasmin Little plays C Schumann, Beach and Smyth
For a neglected Romantic violin sonata, being recorded by Tasmin Little and John Lenehan must feel like going to heaven. Neither the 1897 sonata by Amy Beach nor its slightly earlier counterpart by Ethel Smyth is new to the catalogue, but neither, surely, has ever been treated to anything like Little’s gleaming, endlessly fluid tone or John Lenehan’s warmly characterised, unfailingly sensitive pianism.

The Beach comes first, and although Chandos have already served it well with an expansive account from Gabrielle Lester (1/04), there’s a flexibility and sense of sweep to Little and Lenehan’s performance that’s utterly persuasive on its own terms: meltingly tender as the pair ease into the first movement’s second group, and dark and questioning in the con dolore slow movement. The two players respond to each other as if by instinct, giving a playful glint to the outer sections of the Scherzo (Little wears her virtuosity with delicious insouciance) and emerging from the storms of the finale with terrific sweep.

That’s the most thrilling moment in Ethel Smyth’s Sonata too. As with the Beach, Little and Lenehan let the four movements follow their own, cumulative course from lyrical opening to tempestuous finale, without ignoring the many pleasures to be found along the way – like the little folksy interludes that punctuate the melancholy lilt of Smyth’s slow movement. Perhaps Clara Schumann’s Drei Romanzen could have felt a little more inward – these readings are nothing if not upfront – but it’s hard to object to this kind of assurance coupled to such a fabulous sound, and in Beach’s Op 23 Romance, the pair trace the journey from intimate confession to high-romantic ardour with poetry and utter conviction. A wonderful performance.
Richard Bratby
THE ARTS FUSE - February 2019

You can hardly ask for more from violinist Tasmin Little’s new recording of neglected violin-and-piano pieces by mid- and late-Romantic women composers. From the technical angle, all is superb: Little’s phrasings are smart, her intonation perfect, and her shaping of the music’s dynamics and articulations consistent. Expressively, she clearly loves these pieces, playing them each with warmth and soul.

It’s hard to imagine, for instance, a more fervent account of Amy Beach’s brilliant Violin Sonata in A minor than the one Little and pianist John Lenhan turn in here. This 1896 score, which followed on the heels of Beach’s exhilarating Gaelic Symphony, channels some of Brahms’ and Dvorak’s rhythmic games, but it’s steeped in Beach’s singular lyrical style, the big outer movements framing a droll, hiccupping scherzo and a soaring, intense slow movement.

In Little’s hands, the incisive violin writing really catches fire, while the introspective moments (like the first movement’s second theme) simply float. A similar sensitivity to expressive nuance marks her readings of Beach’s Romance and Invocation.

Little and Lenehan make correspondingly fresh work of Clara Schumann’s Three Romances. Written for Joseph Joachim in 1853, they are, like Clara’s songs, mellifluous and, for the pianist especially, involved. Here, the duo delivers a burnished account of the first Romance, gamely dances through the shadows of the second, and make sweetly wistful work of the last.

Filling out the Chandos album is a lively rendition of Ethyl Smyth’s Violin Sonata in A minor. This is a Sonata that’s more clearly indebted to Brahms than Beach’s; one never quite escapes the influential shadow of the older composer. Still, the current performance is first-rate, with the mystery of the first movement’s opening theme coming across compellingly; the scherzo’s charm fully intact; a darkly lilting account of the slow movement speaking powerfully; and the finale’s stormy last bars boiling over.

Ensemble-wise, Little and Lenehan prove an ideally-matched pair. The keyboard writing in each piece is highly involved – often soloistic, in fact – and Lenehan’s execution of it all is particularly fine: clean, well-balanced, and thoughtfully shaped. But he gracefully cedes the spotlight to Little and the two respond to one another’s playing with such sympathetic energy that these performances really take off.

A terrific disc for the New Year, then: a couple of top-flight artists providing the just the type of advocacy one might desire for this unjustly maligned fare.

Jonathan Blumhofer
 

LEBRECHT LISTENS | Tasmin Little Reminds Us Just How Much We'll Miss Her
By Norman Lebrecht on February 8, 2019
Tasmin Little (Chandos)
★★★★ (out of five)

�� Spotify | iTunes | Amazon

A letter from the English violinist Tasmin Little telling me she is giving up the circuit in a couple of years when she hits 55 arrives pretty much at the same time of her latest release on Chandos, itself a fairly regular occurrence in recent years. Tasmin Little is a prolific recording artist and her programs often take a few strides off the beaten track. The latest consists of music by women — Amy Beach, Ethel Smyth and Clara Schumann — and the sense of an ending adds poignancy to its reception.

Neither of the first two composers can claim that their careers were wrecked by prejudice. Both Beach and Smyth came from wealthy, well-connected families. Smyth was promoted by Sir Thomas Beecham and Beach had several dates with the Boston Symphony. What their music wears is a sense of trying a bit too hard. Tasmin Little’s natural muscularity reduces the effortful aspect to something like normality. I found the pair of sonatas — both in A minor — warmly engaging as musical conversation, with John Lenehan sounding utterly empathetic at the piano.

The centrepiece of the release is Clara Schumann’s Three Romances, written in the season she met Brahms and dedicated to Joseph Joachim, who introduced the couple. Something like love is in the air and the music can all too easily be over-romanticized. This duo gets it just right for my taste, a shimmer of discovery and excitement without gestural commentary. It shows just how much we’ll miss Tasmin once she has hung up her bow.

Link: Ludwig van Toronto
 
Chandos

 
Brahms - The Three Violin Sonatas

Tasmin Little, violin
Piers Lane, piano

JOHANNES BRAHMS
Sonata No.1, Op.78 in G major
Sonata No.2, Op.100 in A major
Sonata No.3, Op.108 in D minor

CHAN 10977

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REVIEWS:
.BBC Music Magazine. June 2018
....Rarely have I heard such unanimity of ensemble on disc Tasmin Little and Piers Lane's fluid yet flexible approach to rubato
and tempo fluctuation can only have been achieved after years of rehearsing together and exchanging musical ideas. Little’s intense and warm vibrato is matched by Lane’s wonderfully rich piano with its emphasis on the bass register, ideally suited to Brahms.....
Eric Levi
THE STRAD - May 2018

Tasmin Little begins Brahms’s First Violin Sonata with the mixture of precision, tonal warmth and flexibility that is always a feature of her playing. She will nail one phrase with silvery brilliance and bring gentle mystery to the next. The dolce lead, back to the recapitulation of the first movement, is magical. She plays the theme of the second movement with a richness that brings her mentor Menuhin to mind. The final Allegro combines beguiling simplicity and a sense of confidentiality with a confident reprise of the slow movement at its heart.

The Second Sonata has an air of reverie to it, with liquid phrasing in the first and last movements, as if she is exploring every phrase to find out what comes at the end. The vivace sections of the second movement are quicksilver, with light and nimble playing from Little and the always-excellent Piers Lane. In the first movement of the Third Sonata there are stirring, heroic moments, but here, as in all the sonatas, much of it has a feeling of intimacy, of something personal being shared.

The slow movement is a seamless flow of intense, controlled emotion, and the finale has some splendid theatrical outbursts. The recorded sound is rich, with the musicians close.

Tim Homfrey
Gramophone magazine – April 2018
“… Little relishes the many instances of Brahm’s writing in the violin’s alto register and Lane is always responsive to the violin’s colourings and shadings, fining his sound right down whenever needed…”
Harriet Smith
ClassicalSource.com – March 2018
“… these are lively, alive, impassioned and searching account … At no point during this recital does one suspect these artists being fazed by the red light being on, a marriage of keen preparation and concert-hall spontaneity.” ****
Colin Anderson
 
BBC RADIO 3 IN TUNE - News - 10.2. 2018 - Tasmin and Piers Lane will be interviewed about this new CD release on

BBC Radio 3 "In Tune" by Sean Rafferty on Friday, 2nd March around 18:25 and will perform live in the studio.
 
 
 
Chandos
 
Szymanowski & Karlowicz: Violin Concertos


BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor

Tasmin Little, violin


CHAN 5185


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REVIEWS:
from: THE STRAITS TIMES - Singapore January 2018 | ***** (5 Stars )
 
from: LIMELIGHT - Australian Music Magazine November 2017 | Limelight's Recording of the Month in November
 

Violin Concertos
Tasmin Little, Edward Gardner, BBC Symphony Orchestra

CHANDOS CHSA5185 (SACD)
by Andrew Aronowicz on November 1, 2017
★★★★½ Little delivers a lot: the British violinist is all shine in polished Polish concertos.

It’s only recently that Tasmin Little released her recording of Karol Szymanowski’s Violin Sonata on the Chandos label, and she must have a liking for the composer as she’s followed it up with readings of both concertos by the Polish master.

There’s much to be found in Szymanowski’s music, which draws on various early-20th-century influences. His Violin Concerto No 1 is considered by many to be the first modern violin concerto, and it’s a true stylistic melange: a heady concoction of impressionist colours, expressionist drama, and the sweeping lyricism of late romanticism (basically, what would become the stock template for the Hollywood soundtrack within a few decades).

There’s so much detail in the vibrant orchestration, it’s easy to get swept up in the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s vivid and immersive performance under the direction of Edward Gardner. It’s a truly brilliant score, and so temperamental: rich romanticism one moment, playful and mercurial the next. Little’s performance is luscious and nuanced – broad and lyrical at moments of high drama, as well as spirited and finely articulated in faster passages. The cadenza here is a truly captivating moment.

The Second Violin Concerto marks a complete change. Its language is more akin to folksong, particularly in the second movement. Szymanowski wrote the work in the summer of 1932 while on retreat in the Tatra Mountains and the region’s band music made an impression on the scoring and thematic material of the concerto. While it might not have the same level of mystery and drama as the First, the Second Concerto does pack a punch. Again, Little’s touch is deft, scaling the heights of this music with expert control and achieving a really infectious energy in the finale.

The final work here is the somewhat more traditional Violin Concerto of Mieczysław Karłowicz. The work is the oldest on the disc (1902), and it’s steeped in the late Romantic tradition. The first movement is dark and brooding, while the second movement is a lush romance in sweet F Major. Little’s playing here is impassioned, moving with the drama of the music, and is particularly en pointe in the final movement, which has a kind of balletic bounce to it.

This disc will be a nice addition for Tasmin Little fans, as well as a great find for violin concerto enthusiasts looking to get outside the box of well-worn favourites.

Tasmin Little's Szymanowski and Karłowicz album is Limelight's Recording of the Month in November.

 
from: Musical Opinion Quarterly December 2017 | ***** ( 5 Stars)
 
Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No 1, Op 35; Violin Concerto No 2, Op 61; Karlowicz: Violin Concerto in A major, Op 8

Chandos's Polska Music Programme has given us a number of distinguished discs of a relatively wide range of
music, but none more impressive than this, which first of all reinforces Szymanowski’s claim to be Poland's greatest
composer after Chopin and then introduces us to the music of Mieczyslaw Karlowicz (1876-1909), just six years the
senior of Szymanowski (1882-1937), whose brief life demonstrated a compositional gift in no way technically or
expressively inferior to that of his junior colleague Adrian Thomas's excellent accompanying notes point out that
Karlowicz’s Concerto (1902) owes a little to Tchaikovsky's, as - perhaps - one might expect it to, but there is much here whichbetokens a strikingly original voice, and the two more familiar Concertos by Szymanowski, if occupying a higher degree of creative originality and accomplishment, as well as Karlowicz’s earlier work, are given performances of exceptional artistry;
here, Tasmin Little displays a musicianship that consistently marks her out as fully the equal, and in many respects the superior, of any violinist currently before the public.

ln this regard, she is splendidly supported by the BBC Symphony under Edward Gardner, whose whole-hearted
contribution to the profound impact of these performances cannot be overstated. A terrific disc, of high distinction.
Robert Matthew-Walker
 
from: Classical Ear
 
Szymanowski: Violin Concerto No 1, Op 35; Violin Concerto No 2, Op 61; Karlowicz: Violin Concerto in A major, Op 8

Ardent support from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner perfectly frames Tasmin Little's exquisitely manicured lyricism and joyful flights of fancy in the exuberantly realised finale of Karlowicz's concerto.
Here’s a value-for-money coupling of three contrasting Polish violin concertos from the first half of the last century in the estimable hands of Tasmin Little. With its unabashed debt to Tchaikovsky and late-Romantic effusiveness, the earliest, Mieczysław Karlowicz’s from 1902, is a gift to Little. Ardent support from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner perfectly frames her exquisitely manicured lyricism and joyful flights of fancy in the exuberantly realised finale. She’s even more striking in the two Szymanowski concertos, conjuring the heady otherness and noticeably neurotic qualities of the First (1916) with elegantly elasticated playing marked by plentiful but judiciously executed vibrato and telling shifts in dynamics. No less characterful is her sweetening of the darker, denser textures of the Second (1933) and her nimbly poised, delicately nuanced way with melodies that smack of rough-hewn rusticity before fracturing into moments of crepuscular introspection. The SACD recording lends Chandos’s customarily excellent sound a vivid immediacy.
Michael Quinn - 11 October 2017
 
from: GRAMOPHONE Magazine October 2017
 
Three violin concertos – all Polish but all very different in mood – make up this latest release from Tasmin Little. programmed last on the disc, but composed first, is the concerto by Mieczyslaw Karlowicz, a big, romantic concerto very much in the mould of Tchaikovsky. The opening horn motif even echoes that of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, albeit in reverse. Little has recorded the Karlowicz before (wonderfully) in 2003 as part of Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series. Her playing is just as strong here, with meaty staccato double-stopped passages, but it’s not all show; she is sensitive to dynamics too. Nigel Kennedy is more self-indulgent in his recording, although the earthiness and drama he brings to it is compelling. Tasmin Little trills exquisitely in the stratosphere to close the second movement, while the finale dances joyously. The BBC Symphony Orchestra, under the astute direction of Edward Gardner, offer keen support, particularly some lovely woodwind flecks of colour to the yearning Romanza slow movement. Chandos’s recording, in a reverberant acoustic, is much beefier than Hyperion’s, which is not always an advantage in orchestral climaxes. Karlowicz died young, caught in an avalanche in the Tatra Mountains in 1909, the same mountains where Karol Szymanowski and his muse, the Polish violinist Pawel Kochariski, spent the summer in 1932. It was there that Szymanowski sketched the initial ideas for his Second Violin Concerto. I heard Little and Gardner make a great case for this work at the Barbican earlier this year, presumably at the time of the Chandos recording sessions. Little really digs into the folk-like first movement, almost Bartékian in its fiddles and drones, with its fierce double- stopping and muscular cadenza — written by Kochariski - coming off splendidly. Kochariski had also been the inspiration for the First, highly perfumed and exotic in feel, composed at a time when Szymanowski was heavily influenced by Arabic culture. Little’s lustrous tone and ethereal top notes are bathed in an orchestral accompaniment that glitters and glistens, while there is fire and ice in the brief cadenza that opens the final section of the work. Her Szymanowksi is as fine as Thomas Zehetmair’s, long the benchmark recording of these two concertos; but, with the Karlowicz thrown in, this makes a highly recommendable altemative.
Mark Pullinger ...
 
from: BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
 
... in the 1st concerto… .she enters the music’s seductive web especially from the arrival of the slowlyrocking harmonies, one of the work's most magical moments. The Concerto No.2, a late work which shows the composer abandoning such overt hedonism for the pantheistic call of the mountains, has a more unbridled dirctness, which Little seizes gratefully.
The Karlowicz though not a masterpiece to match the contemporaneous Sibelius and Elgar concertos, nor indeed on the level of the composer himself achieved little later in his career cut tragically short by a Tatra avalanche. is nevertheless invigorating in such a fine performance as this.
John Allison
PERFORMANCE: **** (4 Stars) | RECORDING: ***** (5 Stars)
 
 
Chandos Records
 
Tasmin Little plays Franck, Faure & Szymanowski

CÉSAR FRANCK - Sonata, M 8 (1886)
GABRIEL FAURE - Romance, Op.28 (1877)
KAROL SZYMANOWSKI - Sonata, Op.9 (1904)


CHAN 10940


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REVIEWS
from: LIMELIGHT Magazine July 2017 - **** ½ Stars
 
Believing in being Franck: A Polish detour adds spice to Little and Lane’s French day out.

In their most recent recorded collaboration, Tasmin Little and Piers Lane deliver some of the finest French examples from the violin and piano repertoire, with a French-inspired Pole thrown in for good measure.

César Franck’s Violin Sonata is a mainstay of the repertoire, exhibiting the composer’s preference for cyclic form – the use of thematic material across all movements. What’s special about the Sonata is that Franck’s compositional technicalities never eclipse the music’s dramatic and communicative nature.

Little’s rendering of the opening Allegretto is perfection, with gorgeously light and silky bow strokes balanced with a more robust, powerful tone as the music approaches its climactic goals. Lane’s touch is sensitive, and matches Little’s colour range perfectly. The pair lets loose in the second and final movements, but Little’s recitativo in the third movement makes for a real moment of focus in the performance, and is probably the highlight.

The Romance in B Flat by Gabriel Fauré is a beautiful divertissement in this recording. Little conjures the most stunning of reveries with this lyrical gem, offering a limpid tone that invokes a soothing calm, even during the more technically fraught passages. Lane’s playing is similarly crystal clear, and beautifully tender.

Szymanowski appears to be getting more airtime these days, and thank goodness, because the Polish composer’s music does deserve more hearings. Szymanowski, like Franck, was a fantastic craftsman with a keen ear for the dramatic. His Violin Sonata is a heavier work than Franck’s, with its two outer movements calling for rich, muscular tone production in the violin part, which Little delivers. The middle movement is a serene, gentle, dreamy Andantino tranquillo e dolce, the opening of which is one of the highlights of Little and Lane’s performance.

The Sonata is followed by two more works by Szymanowski. The first is a Romance that’s imbued with a rich lyricism, and which works towards a magnificent climax. But the best is saved for last, with a Notturno and Tarantella, music of 1915 and a more mature Szymanowski. The strange, exotic music of the Notturno, with its silky melodies and harmonies on open fifths, is a real treat, and the bustling Tarantella, a fantastic showstopper.

from: STRAD Magazine June 2017 - The Strad recommends : * Star
Tasmin Little plays Franck, Szymanowski, and Fauré
A powerful, strongly performed recital from an outstanding duo

To sound its finest, Franck’s chromatically charged, sensually alluring Sonata requires playing of devoted intensity, and that is precisely what it receives from Tasmin Little and Piers Lane. Throughout the languorous opening allegretto, they entwine their phrases with a pulsating seductiveness that is shattered by the second movement’s explosive, hurtling momentum. Here, Lane’s fearless and headlong negotiation of Franck’s notoriously tricky writing allows Little to soar aloft with captivating emotional abandon. Rarely has the explosion of A major radiance that crowns the finale been sounded with such life-affirming incandescence. Fauré’s Romance, which tantalises with its noble restraint, forms the interlude before Szymanowski’s distinctive brand of intoxicating exoticism takes hold.
The Franck-inspired Sonata shows the 22-year-old composer flexing his creative muscles with gleeful exuberance, and here Little and Lane hurl themselves into the fray with carefree delight, achieving a beguiling frisson seldom captured under studio conditions. By 1910 (when the op.23 Romance was composed) Szymanowski had developed into an Scriabinesque expressionist with a penchant for ecstatic melody, a tendency developed still further in the Notturno e Tarantella, which rethinks the Sarasate–de Falla prototype with a Debussy-like flair. It receives another gripping performance from this outstanding duo, captured in luxuriant sound of bracing physical projection.
Julian Haylock
from: GRAMOPHONE Magazine May 2017

Tasmin Little plays Franck, Szymanowski, and Fauré

It occurred to me while listening to this sensitively planned programme that the vintage violinist who Tasmin Little most reminds me of is Alfredo Campoli in his prime, by which I mean parallel degrees of warmth, tonal bloom, agility and a feeling of oneness with the instrument that spins the illusion that for the duration she is the violin. These are wholesome, red-blooded performances, direct and deeply satisfying, with no lack of imagination, the Szymanowski Sonata (1904) audibly reflective of both Brahms and Schumann, though the ethereal glitter that fills the composer’s later output edges around much of the canvas.
Little’s rapport with the superb Piers Lane strikes home right from the sonata’s passionate opening. As a team they pull out whatever stops are necessary to make the music work, although no one could claim that this D minor essay is on the same artistic level as, say, the Mythes or the mysterious Notturno e Tarantella of 1917 that ends the programme. Here Little adjusts her approach to accommodate the other-worldly aspects of Szymanowski’s more mature muse, switching to a slim, sinewy sound for the introduction then digging deep for the main body of the piece, navigating the textures with plenty of sensual tone.
Franck’s Sonata was a wedding present from the composer to the violinist-composer Ysaÿe and once again Tasmin Little and Piers Lane chart love’s course from the sophisticated romance of the opening Allegretto ben moderato to the near-operatic candour of the Recitativo-Fantasia with conviction, the finale opening with an appropriately breezy smile. The Franck is tailed with Fauré’s barcarolle-like Romance of 1877, music infused with a deep sense of nostalgia, whereas the Szymanowski sonata is followed by a rather darker and more expressively outreaching Romance (1910), which he dedicated to his friend the violinist Paul Kochanski and which Little invests with considerable intensity.
As to a final reckoning, I’d still recommend Alina Ibragimova with pianist Cédric Tiberghien as prime representatives of the numinous in Szymanowski’s violin chamber repertoire but the disc under review achieves a fine balance of interpretative qualities and is much to be recommended. I note with interest that Tasmin Little is scheduled to record Szymanowski’s two violin concertos and on the evidence of what we have here I’m confident that we shan’t be disappointed, provided she’s granted top-notch orchestral support.

from:THE OBSERVER, April 23rd 2017

Franck, Szymanowski, Fauré CD review – performances to savour - 4/5 Stars

The selling point here may be the Franck Sonata for violin and piano, but the less familiar repertoire – Fauré’s Romance Op 28 and three works by Szymanowski – makes its own case in these impassioned performances by violinist Tasmin Little and her regular pianist Piers Lane. All their discs for Chandos include duo works that deserve to be better known. Szymanowski’s Sonata Op 9 (1904), expansive and romantic with some of the grandeur of Franck’s sonata, has energy and poetry. The second movement, with its yearning melody and mawkish pizzicato interventions, beguiles and charms. Little is one of the most open-hearted players around, with a watertight virtuosity to match. These are direct and generous performances to savour.

Fiona Maddox
from: Classical Ear
Such dazzlingly assured, unflinchingly communicative music-making, this, vividly captured by the microphones.

César Franck's adorable Violin Sonata comes up as fresh as new paint in this urgently expressive and memorably flexible performance by Tasmin Little and Piers Lane. It's the opening item on their latest disc for Chandos and is followed by a no less sympathetic rendering of Gabriel Fauré's Romance in B flat major, a charming morsel completed in 1877. The rest of the programme is given over to three works by Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937), the most ambitious of which comprises the early (1904) D minor Violin Sonata, a big-hearted creation, like the Franck cyclical in form, and boasting an especially endearing, gorgeously songful slow movement with a deliciously playful pizzicato interlude at its heart. The soaringly lyrical Romance (1910) evinces a strong kinship with the composer's Second Symphony from the previous year, while the Notturno e Tarantella (1917) serves up an intoxicating feast of heady voluptuousness and headlong virtuosity. Such dazzlingly assured, unflinchingly communicative music-making, this, vividly captured by the microphones. Excellent news, too, that Little has already set down both of Szymanowski's glorious violin concertos with Ed Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra – a mouthwatering prospect!
Andrew Achenbach
Chandos Records
 
A Violin for All Seasons
Roxanna Panufnik: Four World Seasons (premiere recording)
Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons
Tasmin Little (violin & conductor)
BBC Symphony Orchestra


Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Spring

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REVIEWS
from: MUSIC WEB INTERNATIONAL - January 2017

Whether this is now eight seasons or two times four makes little difference, though it adds a contemporary gloss to the programming and allows Little to add another premiere recording to her discography.

She directs the BBC Symphony in a modern instrument performance that marries sufficient rhythmic resilience to sonic colour without compromising on individuality. One point struck me as curious, though it will only be of interest to violin fanciers. The orchestra is not led by Stephen Bryant but by Bradley Creswick so it’s the latter we hear jousting with Little in the Vivaldi not the expected Bryant. I wonder why?

Some of the rubati in Spring are worthy of note – the chirping and deft dynamics too. Whilst the slow movement is nicely communicative the dog barks are a touch tame, or maybe I have become accustomed to less domestic canines in this movement over the years. What’s certainly true is that the full string body sounds ripely engaging. Little’s fastest-bow-in the-West approach to the opening of Summer is the acme of glamorous engagement – but she’s not afraid to generate some resinous sounds – and there’s languor and indeed torpor in the central panel of the concerto. The finale is exciting, the harpsichord audible but not over-prominent. Little’s rich tone is heard to great advantage in the opening of Autumn where there is a long harpsichord interpolation from David Wright; on repeated listening I’m not sold on it. The pizzicati in the Largo of Winter are, mercifully, not too loud – I’ve heard them obliterate the solo violin line before now – and Little decorates the line early rather than embellishing in the reprise of theme. I prefer the unembellished lyricism and affectionate directness of the classic Alan Loveday but appreciate that decoration can be appropriate and effective. It’s just that I’d have preferred it later.

So, all in all, this is a rhythmically vital, colourful, engaging big band performance with a full complement of satisfying details.

Panufnik’s own Seasons visits four distinct countries. Avid lyricism and folkloric inflexions infuse Autumn in Albania, written in memory of her father Andrzej. The high-lying skittering figures sound like a Balkan lark, ascending, though there are also soulful moments where Little’s vibrato widens, sobbing into the autumnal air. The Tibetan singing bowl makes its presence felt in the second panel with its quasi-improvisatory elements – slow, spiritual, with a deeply long line. Rebirth features prominently in Spring in Japan, the tangy, clay-rich lower strings supporting the solo violin which gets more and more active and flighty as it burgeons into renewed life. Finally there is Indian Summer – Panufnik journeys not from Vivaldi’s Spring to Winter but from Autumn to Summer – in which fascinating hues and painterly colours lightly evoke, through violinistic techniques, Northern Indian traditional violin playing.

The two Seasons form a most attractive contrast and reflect well on all concerned. Jonathan Woolf

from: GRAMOPHONE - December 2016
‘I am not a Baroque player’, says Tasmin Little, and there’s nothing like laying your cards right out on the table. These are modern-instrument performances of Vivaldi with a big symphonic string section. And if you haven’t already run screaming for your Fabio Biondi or La Serenissima sets, you’re going to enjoy this disc a lot.

So in bounds ‘Spring’, strutting like a cockerel – bold, bright and infectiously (there’s no other word for it) springy. With Little directing from the violin, there’s a satisfyingly torrential heft to the downpours of ‘Summer’, just as the slow movements of ‘Spring’ and ‘Summer’ have a specially hushed intensity when played by a larger body of strings. No Kennedy-like deconstruction here: Little simply responds to the music with an open-eyed freshness and fantasy that’s all the more remarkable when you consider how often she must have played these works. She is lively and conversational, and conveys a vivid sense of character to her colleagues. Listen to the little icicle swirls from David Wright’s harpsichord at the start of ‘Winter’ or the gutsy pizzicatos in the final hunt of ‘Autumn’. Moments such as the inner movement of ‘Winter’, where Little drapes her lustrous tone all over the melody, are a delicious bonus.

Little’s virtuosity comes spectacularly to the fore in Roxanna Panufnik’s Four World Seasons – whether in the Piazzolla-like rhythms and stratospheric heights of the opening ‘Autumn in Albania’, a Himalayan winter scene complete with chiming, warbling Tibetan singing bowl, or Little’s fabulously free but precise birdsong imitations in the shimmering ‘Spring in Japan’. Panufnik has written a really effective response to Vivaldi, ideally tailored to Little’s artistry. Booklet-notes by Jessica Duchen are the icing on the cake Richard Bratby
from: PIZZICATO - December 2016
Tasmin Little's account of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ is a very classical one, free from any historically informed findings. Roxanna Panufnik’s Four World Seasons are colourful and truly interesting pieces rooting in the traditional music of four different regions: Autumn in Albania, Tibetan Winter, Spring in Japan and Indian Summer. Tasmin Little, who commissioned the work, is an accomplished and punchy soloist.
 
 
Chandos Records
 
British Violin Sonatas, Volume 2
Bliss - Sonata for Piano and Violin
Bridge - Sonata for Violin & Piano
Ireland - Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor
Lloyd Webber, W - The Gardens at Eastwell (Premiere recording)
Vaughan Williams - Romance & Pastorale for violin & piano

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REVIEWS
from: THE STRAD Magazine August 2016
 

Two of the sonatas on this disc are unfinished; oh, what good music we don’t have! The ghost of Brahms hovers behind Frank Bridge’s early (1904) E flat major Sonata. There are two movements, the second completed by Paul Hindmarsh in 1996. Tasmin Little and Piers Lane launch gleefully into the first-movement Allegro, shaping its surging lines with full-toned vigour and bringing nicely turned melodic shaping to its passages of repose. There is a satisfyingly big finish. Little tenderly outlines the delicate Andante that follows and skips lightly through the scherzo at its centre.

The first movement of Ireland’s First Sonata ranges far in its eleven-minute span, with its many gear changes negotiated with purpose and poetic sensibility by Little. She brings a simple and touching vulnerability to the second-movement Romance, punctuated by dramatic outbursts. The final Rondo is lively and skittish.

Bliss started his F major Sonata in the trenches, abandoning it after the first movement. In this powerful performance Little and Lane show it to be a work of real emotional weight and complexity. Vaughan Williams’s two early pieces are thoughtful and beautiful. William Lloyd Webber’s short The Gardens at Eastwell, receiving its first recording, is a gentle, reflective delight. The recorded sound is warm and full.

Tim Homfray

from: WTJU - University of Virginia by Ralph Graves, August 31st
 

You don’t have to be Czech to play Dvorak, Spanish to play Rodrigo, nor British to play Vaughan Williams. And yet an artist who shares the composer’s nationality often brings a deeper understanding to the music, a certain authenticity to the performances. That thought occurred to me as I listened to British Violin Sonatas, Volume 2.

In my review of Volume 1, I said: “Tasmin Little played with an expressive yet precise manner, letting the merits of the compositions speak for themselves.” Her performances in volume two are just as beautifully clear, but with (I think) more emotional investment. And the musical chemistry between Tasmin Little and Piers Lane is just as strong as it was in Volume 1.

The disc opens with Frank Bridge’s 1904 Sonata. It’s a somewhat conservative work for Bridge, who in the 1920s abandoned English pastoralism, if not tonality altogether. Although this is is an early work, there are times when the melody threatens to slip the constraints of late-Romantic tonality.

John Ireland’s Violin Sonata No. 1 features long phrases that extend across wide intervals. Little’s violin practically sings these melodies, bring out their structural and emotive beauty. Little and Lane make the shifting textures and moods of the work seem like a conversation between two close friends.

The Sonata of Arthur Bliss is an eleven-minute work densely packed with musical ideas. In some ways, it’s the most English-sounding of the lot, especially with its melodic turns. But the texture and cross-currents make this so much more than just another pretty pastoral.

The program concludes with the “Romance and Pastorale” of Ralph Vaughan Willimas leading into William Lloyd Webber’s beautiful “The Gardens at Eastwell.” Both are quintessential examples of the English pastoral style and make a lovely way to end the program.

My review of Volume 1 concluded: “I look forward to volume two!” Three years later, I can say it was definitely worth the wait. Now I look forward to volume three!

 
 
Beethoven - Complete Sonatas for piano and violin

Compact Disc One
Sonata, Op. 12 No. 1 (1797-98) in D major
Sonata, Op. 30 No. 2 (1801-02) in C minor
Sonata, Op. 96 (1812) in G major


Compact Disc Two
Sonata, Op. 12 No. 2 (1797-98) in A major
Sonata, Op. 23 (1800) in A minor
Sonata, Op. 24 'Spring' (1800-01) in F major
Sonata, Op. 30 No. 3 (1801-02) in G major


Compact Disc Three
Sonata, Op. 30 No. 1 (1801-02) in A major
Sonata, Op. 12 No. 3 (1797-98) in E flat major
Sonata, Op. 47 'Kreutzer-Sonate' (1802-03) in A

Tasmin Little violin - Martin Roscoe piano
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REVIEWS:
 
From: BBC Music Magazine - May 2016
 

BEETHOVEN
Complete violin sonatas Martin Roscoe (piano), Tasmin Little (violin) Chandos CHAN 10888 237:34 mins (3 discs)

It says a great deal for Tasmin Little that she has allowed pianist Martin Roscoe's name to go first on the booklet cover. Well, these works were all published as Sonatas 'for Piano and Violin', and any violinist who approaches them as potential star vehicles is already guilty of a capital offence. I've heard, and admired performances in which violin and piano work as one: 'two minds with but a single thought'. Here though one is very much aware of two distinct personalities, each with plenty to say about this music. There's even a sense of friendly rivalry at times - and all to the good. Little's expressive style is generous and extrovert, Roscoe's at times more inward looking - though the first movement of the Kreutzer Sonata comes across as an emotional switchback ride for both players. That's one of the highlights of the set for me, but I'm also impressed by the way Little and Roscoe make the two following movements sound more than add-ons to that terrific opening drama. The tension is well contained in the more Classical early sonatas. Even better is the sense that the C minor Sonata, Op. 30 No. 2, is on the point of bursting out of that formal container. I'm not quite so convinced by the last Sonata, Op. 96, where Beethoven already seems on the threshold of his 'late' manner. Is Little's heart in particular still with the early Classical and middle-period Tromethean' Beethoven? This is an impressive achievement overall though, and beautifully recorded. Stephen Johnson PERFORMANCE **** RECORDING *****
 
From: The Sunday Times, 28 February 2016
   
BEETHOVEN
Complete Violin Sonatas
Tasmin Little (violin),
Martin Roscoe (piano)
Chandos CHAN108883 (3 CDs)

The British violinist follows Leonidas Kavakos (Decca), Renaud Capucon (Erato/Warner) and lsabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi) in recording all 10 of Beethoven's sonatas, and she can hold her head high in such company, especially in partnership with her outstanding pianist, who takes precedence on the box cover. Like Mozart's, Beethoven's sonatas are designated for piano and violin, rather than the other way round, and here the two instrumentalists are equal partners,
even in the Work dedicated to the French violinist Kreutzer, “written in a highly concertante style almost like a concerto".

This famous sonata gets a wonderfully vivid and nuanced performance from both players, virtuosic, alive to the suble “conversational” interplay between  the instruments. The sequence is satisfying, too, with each of the three discs containing one from each of the 0p 12 and 0p 30 sets, and 0p 96 and the Kreutzer being the final works on discs l and 3 respectively. Roscoe and Little seem inspired by the greatness and variety of this music. Neither artist has done anything finer on disc. HC

 
From: CLASSIC FM, 26 February 2016
   
BEETHOVEN
Complete Violin Sonatas
Tasmin Little (violin),
Martin Roscoe (piano)
Chandos CHAN108883 (3 CDs)


CRITICS CHOICE by David Mellor
 
Tasmin Little is a dedicated advocate of British violin music, but is determined not to be typecast, and this fine set of Beethoven Violin Sonatas, with the pianist Martin Roscoe proves how right she is. Here she triumphantly shows her authority in the Austro-German classics, and justifies the faith that Chandos puts in her, by investing so much in what must have been an expensive recording. Chandos also rewards her, as they always do, with outstanding sound, which shows off Tasmin’s burnished tone, and technical agility. The Beethoven Violin Sonatas attract the great violinists of every generation, and this is a hugely competitive field, in which it’s impossible to talk about a best buy. But for me, Tasmin’s set is one of the finest of recent years, and deserves the widest circulation.
 
 
From: Amazon: 16 February 2016

Top Customer Reviews *****

By Robert Roy  TOP 1000 REVIEWER on 16 Feb. 2016

I really hope Yehudi Menuhin is sitting in heaven glowing with pride as his protege continues his tradition...

There was an intention that my wife would buy these CDs for my birthday. However, having signed for the parcel I dropped some pretty broad hints and ended up receiving them as a Valentine's Day gift. (Mrs. Wife's gift was a Radley handbag!) Well, I think we both did well! Both Beethoven and Radley have appropriate tokens of love!

This is a superb set of sonatas that are, as pianists keep telling us, are for PIANO and violin. However, Ms. Little and Mr. Roscoe are such a compelling team that neither instrument seems to be subordinate to the other and simply meld to create a continuos stream of gorgeous music making.

What I love about this set of discs is the sheer 'joie de vivre' that this team bring to the music. The opening of the last sonata that seems to come from nowhere is played so beautifully that it sets the tone for the rest of the work. The following Adagio is possibly the loveliest performance of this movement I've heard since the late, great Menuhin.

There is humour aplenty in the fast movements with very neat bowing from Ms. Little. (It's amazing how many top players find this difficult). The mighty Kreutzer is given a superb performance by both musicians and makes me feel that this is actually Beethoven's second violin concerto.

You know, I'm sitting here with a glass of whisky with my big white cat on my knee. I could attempt a blow by blow analysis of this set but, frankly, who cares?! Buy them and love them.

One last thing, I do hope that Chandos are going to record Tasmin in the Beethoven concerto - SOON.

The recorded sound is superb!
 
Chandos Records
 
Tasmin Little plays British Violin Concertos

Samuel Coleridge Taylor (1875-1912) Violin Concerto in G minor Op.80
Allegro maestoso - Poco più mosso - Tempo I - Moderato
Andante semplice - Poco più mosso - Poco più mosso
Allegro molto - Moderato - L'istesso tempo


Frederick Delius (1862-1934) Suite (c.1888-91)
I. Pastorale. Andante quasi Allegretto
II. Intermezzo. Allegro molto vivace
[III. [ Élégie.] Adagio cantabile - [ ] - Tempo I

IV. [Finale.] Allegro animato - Tranquillo - Tempo I

Haydn Wood (1882-1959) Violin Concerto in A minor
Allegro moderato - Cadenza - Tempo I
Andante sostenuto - Poco più mosso - Tempo I
Finale. Allegro giocoso - Brillante - Poco largamente

Tasmin Little violin
BBC Philharmonic / Sir Andrew Davis


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REVIEWS:
STRAD Magazine, Wednesday 10th February 2016
The Chandos engineers have produced a typically wide and opulent soundstage for concertante works by three English composers who crossed the Atlantic – in spirit or in person. In Tasmin Little’s hands the G minor Concerto of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor radiates glamour and confidence at full beam. She goes all out for expressive affection with bags of vibrato, supported by a close rapport with Andrew Davis, who coaxes sighing portamento from the BBC Philharmonic.

Their conviction might place Coleridge-Taylor’s Concerto in the company of Romantics such as Korngold and Barber, and they also play Haydn Wood’s A minor Concerto with dedication and passion. The first two movements of the Wood promise much, with generous and memorable melodies, but their development tends to lapse into German Romantic sequences. There’s a similarly generic oboe-led interlude for the central Andante, replete with the sort of English-pastoral modulations that Vaughan Williams made his own and that even the young Delius did better in a four-movement Suite of character pieces that he filed in a bottom drawer.

Ralph Holmes and Vernon Handley showed years ago that Wood’s Concerto was worth pulling out again. Little and Davis go one better, with more deftly managed transitions, wind playing that would charm the birds from the trees and solos in the Intermezzo that embrace the spirit of a Hardanger fiddler. The finale flies between Mendelssohn’s Leipzig, the first cuckoo’s England and the harmonies of American spirituals, to remind us of Delius’s eclectic inspiration.
Peter Quantrill

The Times, Friday 30th October 2015 ****
Like George Gilbert Scott’s St Pancras Station, Victorian and Edwardian concert music has bounced from being reviled and threatened with oblivion to something approaching veneration. We now have entire festivals devoted to resuscitating tuneful, tonal British composers whose names produced guffaws of derision in smart musical circles in the 1970s when I was a student.

The danger now is overvaluation. There are no neglected geniuses here. On the other hand, there is a wealth of superbly crafted, lyrical music that didn’t deserve to be cast into the wilderness because the musical establishment became obsessed with angst and atonality for half a century.

Tasmin Little, herself an under-appreciated bastion of British musical life, has been an indefatigable champion of this repertoire. Here, accompanied sympathetically by the BBC Philharmonic under Andrew Davis, she plays violin concertos by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Haydn Wood (both pupils of Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music) and a delightful early Suite for Violin and Orchestra by Frederick Delius.

Wood’s concerto gripped me most. He himself was an accomplished violinist as well as a composer who achieved much success with his light music and songs (the classic First World War ballad Roses of Picardy is one of his). Here he revels in the bigger canvas.

The opening movement is marvellously dramatic, with a hair-raising cadenza of fiendish double-stoppings (Little plays it stunningly). A gorgeous horn tune launches the wistful slow movement; the finale is a spirited romp. Throughout, Wood’s harmonic world is irresistibly lush without being cloying.

Coleridge-Taylor’s concerto has a less compulsive flow and is quite derivative; the shadow of Dvořák is obvious. Yet it too has magnificent aspects, especially the finale’s fiery climax. The intriguing thing is that Coleridge-Taylor, Britain’s first famous black composer, had destroyed an earlier violin concerto based on African-American melodies, declaring that “those native melodies rather tied me down.”

He was surely on the verge of writing radically different music when he died in 1912, just a few weeks after the replacement concerto was premiered. He was just 37. Richard Morrison

The Guardian, Thursday 22nd October 2015 ***
Wood; Coleridge-Taylor; Delius: Violin Concertos CD review – a mixed bag made convincing
Violin Concerto for Chandos, on a disc that includes his other string concertos. But the work that forms the centrepiece of her latest collection of British so-called concertos is the Suite for Violin and Orchestra that Delius composed around 1890. It’s an odd mix of movements, three looking forward to the music that would come a few years later while the fourth seems to have strayed in from from some forgotten work by Mendelssohn or Max Bruch. Little pays it just as much careful attention as the other two equally unfamiliar works on her disc, though, both of them composed significantly later than the Suite.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Concerto dates from 1912, the year of his premature death, and more than a decade after he had earned the undying gratitude of choral societies around the country with his cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. It’s a patchy but striking work – with echoes of Elgar and (in the slow movement) even Puccini, as well as the more predictable Dvořák – which probably deserves to be heard more often than it is. I’m not sure the same can be said for Haydn Wood’s 1928 Concerto, with its overblown medley of hand-me-down romantic styles – a bit of brash Rachmaninov here, a mellow Elgarian tune there – though as always Little and Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic try hard to make it all seem convincing.
Andrew Clements

Chandos
 
Schubert Chamber Works

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Sonata, Op. post. 137 No.1, D 384 (1816)
Sonata, Op. post. 137 No.2, D 385 (1816)
Sonata, Op. post. 137 No.3, D 408 (1816)
Sonata, Op. post. 162, D 574 (1817)

COMPACT DISC TWO
Rondeau brillant, Op.70, D 895 (1826)
Fantasie, Op. post.159, D 934 (1827)
Sonata, D 821 (1824)
Adagio, Op. post.148, D897 (1827 or 1828)
for Piano, Violin and Cello
'Notturno'


Tasmin Little violin
Piers Lane piano
Tim Hugh cello

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Schubert

 
 
REVIEWS:

The Daily Telegraph, Saturday 25th April 2015 ****
Schubert's genial personality comes through on the first disc of this two-CD set. In four violin sonatas written while he was still in his teens there are none of the troubles and inner searchings that were to be enshrined in the later "Death and the Maiden" string quartet or the last piano sonatas.

Exuberance is the keyword here, and that is precisely what Tasmin Little and Piers Lane bring to them in delightfully positive performances, bristling with vigour and with tenderness and tonal subtlety that make the music spring to life. Taste goes hand in hand in those pieces with healthy spirit in as it does in “Rondo brillant" that opens the second disc. But here the Classical profile of the earlier works has given way to a seam of more dramatic, Romantic sensibility that Little and Lane top with verve, ardour and spark. supplemented by an intensity and sensitivity of expression in the late C major Fantasy. The cellist Tim Hugh gives, with Lane, a poised, eloquently turned performance of the Arpeggione Sonata, and all three performers come together for the late "Notturno", a sublime performance. Geoffrey Norris

STRAD Magazine, June 2015
" .... this is otherwise a well played conspectus of this small corner of Schubert's output,

And there's more: Tim Hugh offers the ever charming Arpeggione Sonata and Little returns to sign off with that biguiling gem, the piano trio Notturno, Simply gorgeous," David Threasher

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French Violin Sonatas
Guillaume Lekeu (1870-1894)

Sonata in G major (1892-93)

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Sonata movement in A minor (1897)

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)
Sonata No. 1, Op.13 in A major (1875-76)


Tasmin Little violin
Martin Roscoe piano

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listen to 3 min
Lekeu 2nd mov

 
 
REVIEWS:

New Zealand Herald, Saturday 29th November 
"Little, together with pianist Martin Roscoe, opens the set with this piece, its restless textures offering limitless scope for the intense emotional engagement that we so value in these musicians.

The slow movement, substantially in 7/4, is a beautifully drawn-out song; as often happens on this disc, you find yourself craning forward to enjoy the very physical sound of bow on string... "

Verdict: "French sonatas glow with the energy and impetuousness of youth."

>>> more >>>

International Record Review, November 2014
“… captured in gloriously full sound, underpinning the Brahmsian quality of the piano writing … The slow movement carries on the broad Romantic impulse, Roscoe’s tone capturing the fullness while also achieving a veiled quality.(on Lekeu’s Sonata)
" Full credit must go to the Chandos engineers for reproducing this so well: equally Little draws the loveliest of tones from her Guadagnini violin….”

>>> more >>>

Gramophone Magazine, December 2014
" ...Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe give a passionale full-blooded performance of the Lekeu Sonata, taking on board the 22-year-old composer's lofty tone and high ambitions...."

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Strad Magazine, January 2015
"If Fauré’s entire output could be encapsulated in just one word it would be ‘tendresse’. The inspired teaming of Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe fully captures this elusive quality in glowing performance of the ravishing A major Sonata (complete with first-movement exposition repeat) while retaining a Brahmsian dramatic grip that ensures the music is sent soaring aloft in all the right places. Roscoe emerges unscathed from one of the trickiest of all piano accompaniments, sustaining a seductively velvet quality in even the notorious scherzo, while Little intensifies her exultant phrasing in the outer movements with a narrower, faster vibrato than usual to captivating effect.

Fauré was a man of passionate reserve, a tantalising dichotomy that not only informed his music but also allowed him to appreciate and nurture a wide range of talents at the Paris Conservatoire, including Ravel, whose 1897 sonata movement turns out not to be a stand-alone affair after all but was originally intended to head a multi-movement work. Little and Roscoe sound completely at home in the music’s varied stylistic interfaces, and really come into their own in the chromaticisms of the Lekeu Sonata in a winning performance to rival even that of Yehudi Menuhin (EMI). Exemplary annotations from Roger Nichols and first-rate sound provide the musical icing on the cake."
JULIAN HAYLOCK

BBC Music Magazine, February 2015
" ...Tasmin Little and Martin Roscoe masterfully pacing the ebb and flow of the tension. Nonetheless there is little precedent for the long-breathed unfolding line of the slow movement, and Little's whispered treatment of the end is magical. Little displays similar control in the Scherzo.of Fauré's A major Sonata, the music seemingly evaporating into the ether at the end of the central section...."

>>> more >>>

Chandos Records
 
William Walton (1902-1983)
Symphony No. 1
William Walton (1902-1983)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Revised version, 1943
For Jascha Heifetz


Tasmin Little violin
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner, conductor

BBC Music Magazine BBC Music Magazine June 2014

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REVIEWS:
"Walton’s Violin Concerto is an apt choice of coupling for the Symphony. Begun in 1938 as a result of a commission from Jascha Heifetz, it successfully amalgamates the dazzling virtuoso elements expected by Heifetz with lyrical music that for the first time expresses Walton’s life long love of the Amalfi coast of Southern Italy. This is the second time that Tasmin Little, a true champion of British music, has recorded the Walton Violin Concerto – the first was in the mid 90s with Andrew Litton and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In  Little’s performance, recorded here in the fine acoustic of the Watford Colosseum, it is the lyrical aspects of the first movement and parts of the finale that make the strongest impression. The romantic and dreamy tranquillity of the opening movement is marvellously conveyed by the rapturous sounds that she elicits from her rich toned instrument. The challenges of the central scherzo are met with absolute conviction and mischievous wit, while Gardner and the BBC SO provide incisive accompaniment throughout in which the balance between soloist and orchestra seems ideal. Those seeking a coupling of these two Walton masterpieces will be more than well served by this outstanding disc that certainly warrants a top recommendation. " Graham Williams , Classical CD Choice - May 30th 2014
Rating: ****
"To the Violin Concerto, completed in 1939 on a commission from the Lithuanian-born virtuoso Jascha Heifetz, Tasmin Little brings a mellifluous glow and a capricious spirit. This is music of impetuously shifting moods, by turns inward-looking and extrovert, a combination that Little, in close alliance with Gardner and the orchestra, effects with bravura and with a range of tonal shading and a sensitive moulding of phrases that, as in the symphony, lends the music both bloom and sparkle. "
GN, Daily Telegraph
Rating: ****
"The violin concerto, Tasmin Little’s second recording of it, reinforces her position as one of the very top advocates of the work, as she is of British music in general. It is an exceptionally warm and lyrical sound and just as light and agile when it needs to be. The cadenza in the third movement is a masterclass in controlled intensity."
Kimon Daltas, Sinfini Music
"Little proves that she owns this piece, and constantly engages the listener with singing lines, effortless, wispy figurations, and forthright, athletic playing in the aggressive passages." Marcus Karl Maroney, Concerto.net | The Classical Music Network
BBC Music Magazine June 2014 - Recording of the Month -
White Hot Walton
(Performance ***** Recording *****)
"Two masterworks of English music, graced with top-flight interpretations from two exceptional artists and a classy orchestra: what's not to like? The high-octane intensity of Walton's First Symphony is a different proposition from the Violin Concerto, whose alternating roguishness and warmth reflect the southern Italian scene where much of the work was written. This range of demands is superbly met here. Tasmin Little first recorded Walton's Concerto 20 years ago - a reading delivered with an astonishing velocity in the quick passages, and with much soul in the long-breathed lyrical ones. These extremes of pace and mood allow for little in the way of middle ground: Walton here found himself needing to satisfy the ultra-virtuoso requirements of Jascha Heifetz, while also looking to convey in music the happiness of his relationship with Alice, Viscountess Wimborne. The result was a stop-start design that can be difficult to hold together, as Little's earlier disc showed. Her new one squares this near-unsquareable circle remarkably. Little's way with the virtuoso passages is a notch less headlong than before, allowing the ear to savour her phenomenal accuracy, yet with no loss of fire and brilliance. And here expressive range searches out wonderful new regions: the solo violin's first three opening notes here amount to a haunting musical world in themselves, while the Scherzos second tune is graced with a wry, mesmerising wistfulness of tone. Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra provide an accompaniment whose range of detail, by turns brilliant and beautifully precise, is never driven too hard. "
Malcolm Hayes - BBC Music Magazine - June 2014
"Long eclipsed by Britten, Walton is a composer in need of champions. His First Symphony and Violin Concerto are supposedly repertoire works, yet we seldom hear them in the concert hall. This CD – a perfect pairing of his two symphonic masterworks – shows what we have been missing. Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra profile the symphony’s turbulent syncopations, brassy dissonances and expressionist brilliance – a truly exhilarating performance.

In the concerto, Little finds the nexus between sultry lyricism and rapturous virtuosity."
Andrew Clark, Financial Times
Like a good wine, violinist Tasmin Little is ageing very well indeed. I have been following her career since the late 1980s, from her crisp, fresh-faced readings of Bruch, Dvorák or Lalo under the late Vernon Handley to her latest Chandos recordings, most notably the best Moeran VC on record. This account of the Walton Violin Concerto is wonderfully fluid, relaxed and eminently musical. Cannot be bettered. I'm not quite so enamored with Edward Gardner's version of Symphony No.1, however. The famous opening chords seem a little too hushed, indistinct. Thankfully, things improve greatly thereafter, and the polish and silvery sound of the BBC SO cannot be denied. A generously filled and crisply recorded album then, highly recommendable for the VC and certainly more than adequate in the symphony. T Muething, The Classical Shop
I’d be surprised if Little and Gardner had not studied the recording made by dedicatee and composer – an authoritative but not necessarily compulsory model – but they take all three movements significantly more slowly than those illustrious predecessors. I’m not going to make detailed comparisons, however, because everything on the new Chandos recording sounds just as ‘right’ as on RCA. There are two ways to describe performance that come out on paper looking slower than the opposition: there are those that drag and those that give the music a little more time to breathe. This belongs to the latter type. Chandos had earlier recordings of the First Symphony and the Violin Concerto... but, good as they both are, they are outshone by the new recording .... Of all Tasmin Little’s and Edward Gardner’s recent fine recordings this has impressed me the most. .... I think you’ll want to buy it when you have heard it. Brian Wilson - MusicWeb International
"Walton's Violin Concerto is an apt choice of coupling for the Symphony. Begun in 1938 as a result of a commission from Jascha Heifetz, it successfully amalgamates the dazzling virtuoso elements expected by Heifetz with lyrical music that for the first time expresses Walton's life long love of the Amalfi coast of Southern Italy. This is the second time that Tasmin Little, a true champion of British music, has recorded the Walton Violin Concerto – the first was in the mid 90s with Andrew Litton and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In Little's performance, recorded here in the fine acoustic of the Watford Colosseum, it is the lyrical aspects of the first movement and parts of the finale that make the strongest impression.

The romantic and dreamy tranquillity of the opening movement is marvellously conveyed by the rapturous sounds that she elicits from her rich toned instrument. The challenges of the central scherzo are met with absolute conviction and mischievous wit, while Gardner and the BBC SO provide incisive accompaniment throughout in which the balance between soloist and orchestra seems ideal.

Those seeking a coupling of these two Walton masterpieces will be more than well served by this outstanding disc that certainly warrants a top recommendation."
Graham Williams SA-CD.net
Chandos Records

 
Ernest John Moeran (1894-1950)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1937-42)
Frederick Delius (1862-1934)
Legende (c. 1892-95)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934
A Song of the Night, Op. 19 No. 1, H 74 (1905)
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Premiere recordings in this arrangement
Chanson de matin, Op. 15 No. 2 (1899)
Chanson de nuit, Op. 15 No. 1 (1897-99
Salut d'amour, Op. 12 (1888)

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
The Lark Ascending (1914, revised 1920)
Romance for Violin and Orchestra To Marie Hall

Tasmin Little violin with the BBC Philharmonic/Sir Andrew Davis
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REVIEWS:
Limelight Magazine - Australia (May 2014):

Little launches the loveliest of Larks ever to take flight
"British violinist Tasmin Little has been playing Vaughan Williams’ evocation of a lark in flight for most of her career – she and Sir Andrew Davis recorded it 20 years ago for Teldec – but this new recording on Chandos is something else altogether. It’s not just that Little’s tone is nigh on ideal, capable of an extraordinary ethereal sweetness, but her sense of phrasing makes the whole work into one long melody, seemingly untroubled by bar lines. Davis and Chandos support this flight with a gorgeous cushion of string sound, surpassing any other audio account that can recall.

If that sounds like a rave for a new recording of The Lark, it should, but this disc, named for Vaughan Williams’ hit, is a cunning façade for a recording of one of the finest of British violin concertos – that of E J Moeran. It’s criminal that there are only four other versions of this appealing masterpiece in the catalogue – Sammons and Campoli (both with Boult and both in poor sound), Georgiadis on Lyrita and Lydia Mordkovitch’s fine account with Handley, also on Chandos. Little sweeps all before her with the most sensitive and nuanced account to date. Where she stands out is in her ability to make Moeran’s rhapsodic work feel naturally structured yet still full of drama. Makeweights include Delius’ attractive Legende and some of Elgar’s salon favourites in orchestral guise. What’s not to like?"
Clive Paget
Sinfini Music:
"Little’s special sense of identity with English music is confirmed by a performance of E. J. Moeran’s Violin Concerto that surpasses even the Albert Sammons classic of the mid-1940s (Moeran described Sammons at the time as ‘the only one to play it.’). This is not merely a question of vastly superior recording quality but of Little’s special ability to ‘dream’ and fantasize with the music as though she is composing it as she goes along. As a result Moeran’s rhapsodic tendency loses its episodic structural profile and sounds instead likes an inspired stream of musical consciousness. The first movement’s early solo cadenza can, for example, feel dramatically premature, yet Little glides effortlessly into, through and out of it as though it was the most natural thing in the world." Julian Haylock >>> read full review here
The Mail on Sunday: *****
"Tasmin Little is a terrific violinist whose devotion to English music inspires her to learn pieces a player of her stature could easily avoid in favour of yet another performance of Bruch's first violin concerto. The centrepiece of her latest enticing album is E J Moeran's Violin Concerto.
Moeran was a Norfolk man fascinated by Ireland, where he tragically died in 1950 after falling into deep water having drunk too much; His concerto is a splendidly lyrical piece with a lively second movement and a lovely, long breathed, slow finate. Moeran admired Delius, and so indeed does Tasmin, so her account of Delius's early Legende is also treasurable, as is a short 1905 Holst piece, A Song Of The Night. There isn't a single bar here that's characteristic of the mature Holst, but it's still a delight.
After this savoury meal for the adventurous come a few sweetmeats, beginning with new arrangements for violin and orchestra of Elgar's Chanson De Nuit and Chanson De Matin, plus SalutD'Amour. These fit firmly into the category 'Why bother?' but still appealingly caress the ear. Finally, a delicious dollop of figgy pudding, with Tasmin's second thoughts on CD about Vaughan Williams's The Lark Ascending. Maybe the lark ascends too often these days, but, however often you hear it it remains a ravishingly beautiful piece, and no one does it better than Ms L.
" David Mellor - 17 November 2013
Review
BBC Radio 3 - "Building a Library": Review of this CHANDOS release. Listen or download by clicking the logo. (13min)
Chandos Records
  British Violin Sonatas, Volume 1
Howard Ferguson (1908 – 1999) Sonata No. 2, Op. 10 (1946)
for Violin and Piano
Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) Suite, Op. 6(1934 – 35)
for Violin and Piano
Sir William Walton(1902 – 1983) Sonata (1947 – 49)
for Violin and Piano
Edited by Hugh Macdonald
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REVIEWS:
International Record Review:
"...The Britten work — a Suite rather than sonata, but let us not quibble — likewise benefits from such generously extended advocacy. In the opening 'March', for instance, Little's rock-solid and secure harmonics, her playing sul ponticello and up in the highest stratosphere of the instrument's range, often at a miraculous pianissimo, are quite breathtaking....." Piers Burton-Page >>> read full review as PDF
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Benjamin Britten, Piano and Violin Concerto
Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 13
(1938, revised 1945)*
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 15
(1938 – 39, revised 1950, 1954, and 1965)

Tasmin Little violin,
Howard Shelley piano


BBC Philharmonic / Edward Gardner
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REVIEWS:
International Record Review:
"I have been waiting for some time to hear Tasmin Little in this violin concerto and she does not disappoint. In her own performer's note, she rightly praises the phenomenal account by Ida Haendel, but hers is in no way inferior. Indeed, in some ways, in the inner intensity of her phrasing and outstanding lyrical playing, Little is to be preferred, notably in the astounding decclamato passage in the 'Passacaglia' and in the long Lento e solenne coda, where — like Haendel — she plays the final espressiro passage in octaves (it's not in the score, but the music demands it, without question). Elsewhere, her virtuosity is breathtaking. The playing of the BBC Philharmonic under Gardner is pretty staggering throughout, especially in the second movement (with a virtuoso timpanist), and is superior to the Bournemouth Symphony under Paavo Berglund - good though they are. .... this is a simply magnificent recording which it would be impossible to improve upon." Robert Matthew-Walker
Mellor's CD of the Week (Mail on Sunday)
"Perhaps the best new recording thus far of Benjamin Britten's centenary year features three fine British artists. Tasmin Little is inspired throughout the Violin Concerto, and Howard Shelley virtuosic in the Piano Concerto, which is often percussive in the manner of Prokofiev. Ed Gardner has long been a Britten specialist, and he and the BBC Philharmonic provide an eloquently idiomatic backcloth. Chandos's recording is also, as ever, first-class. Both are early works, and for me, a cause for regret that Britten was later so pressured by his partner Peter Pears to produce almost entirely vocal music."
 
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Chandos Records
 
Witold Lutoslawski
Symphony No. 1 (1941-47)

Partita (1988) for Violin and Orchestra for Violin and Piano (1984)
Tasmin Little violin

Chain 2 (1984-85)
Dialogue for Violin and Orchestra
Tasmin Little, violin

Preludia taneczne (1955)
(Dance Preludes)
for Clarinet Solo, Percussion, Harp, Piano, and Strings
Michael Collins, clarinet
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Edward Gardner
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REVIEWS:
International Record Review (April 2013)
"... Any doubt as to Tasmin Little’s identification with this music is quickly banished as she responds with some of her most insightful as well as virtuosic playing on disc. The spacious yet immediate sound is on a par with earlier discs in the series..."
Richard Whitehouse
 
The Financial Times (16-17 March 2013)
"...Then come Partita and Chain 2, two 1980s violin concertos notable for their expressive intensity, a quality matched by Tasmin Little’s performances ...” Andrew Clark
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Chandos Records
 
Violin Sonatas Strauss | Respighi
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Violin Sonata, Op. 18 (TrV 151) (1887) in E flat major

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Violin Sonata, P 110 (1917) in B minor

from Sei pezzi, P 31 (1901-05)
(Six Pieces) for Violin and Piano

Tasmin Little, violin
Piers Lane, piano
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REVIEWS:
GRAMOPHONE
"Both sonatas are played here with complete understanding and spontaneity, and bring moments of true musical virtuosity. Piers Lane is a first-class pianist and forms a fine partnership with Tasmin Little, whose tone is caught with great beauty, for the Chandos recording is completely real and naturally balanced."
Ivan March
 
BBC Music Magazine (January 2013)
"Richard Strauss' early Violin Sonata is so full of youthful rhetoric and so obviously pines for the colours of a full orchestra rather than the piano, that it's often a difficult work to bring off convincingly. But Tasmin Little and Piers Lane turn in one of the most satisfying performances I've heard. Their judicious choice of tempos allows the music to breathe naturally. They also display an intense sympathy with Strauss' melodic style, especially in their delicate and atmospheric account of the slow movement.

The Strauss is coupled on this recording with a remarkably eloquent interpretation of Respighi s Sonata in B minor. This is also a rather problematic work, in its uneasy mix of Italianate lyricism and Germanic contrapuntal elaboration. Little and Lane's relaxed yet focused reading of the first two movements is balanced by a thrusting, even aggressive account of the passacaglia finale: with its deep piano octaves, this is Respighi at his most Brahmsian. Little's full-toned bravura in this movement reminds us why this Sonata was a favourite of Jascha Heifetz, and Lane has to work just as hard.
Performance: ***** Recording: ****" Calum MacDonald
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Chandos Records
 
BBC Radio 3 "Disc of the Week"


FREDERICK DELIUS

Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra
Violin Concerto
Cello Concerto

Tasmin Little, violin
Paul Watkins, cello
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sir Andrew Davis
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REVIEWS:
www.classicalsource.com
"Tasmin Little has had this soaring work in her repertoire for some time, and the experience shows, especially in those parts well above the stave, which are as secure and well-considered as one could hope for. Coupled with this are spontaneity, so essential in Delius, and an ebb and flow that finds a sympathetic partner in Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The cadenza is wonderfully played and paced. Little's earlier recording (now on Decca) with Sir Charles Mackerras is an equally fine performance, but Chandos's more-natural balance has the greater appeal."
Peter Joelson
 
GRAMOPHONE (December 2011)
"Some two decades ago Tasmin Little set down memorable versions of both the Violin Concerto and Double Concerto with Sir Charles Mackerras at the helm (for Argo and EMI Eminence respectively). Clearly the intervening years have not diminished her abundant love for and entrancing empathy with this glorious repertoire. Not only does she surmount every technical hurdle with ease, her tone remains wonderfully pure and heart-warmingly expressive.

Little's partnership with Paul Watkins strikes me as an especial success; indeed, theirs is the most tenderly lyrical and raptly spontaneous performance of the Double Concerto to have yet come my way (and I do not forget the considerable claims of Little's own earlier recording with Raphael Wallfisch). In the Cello Concerto Watkins resuscitates all except two bars of Delius's altogether more challenging original edition of the solo part. Suffice it to say, he brings a wealth of profound musicality, ardour and insight to bear, making his an interpretation to cherish and one to which I can already see myself returning many times.

....The orchestral playing is commendably poised throughout, Chandos's SACD sound airy, rich and glowing. No self-respecting Delian can afford to be without this indispensable issue."
Andrew Achenbach
 
The Sunday Times (2 October 2011)
“... a magical, sensuous flow is the presiding quality of this superior performance by Little. Watkins is no less captivating in the Cello Concerto, and they are superb together in the Double Concerto, with its heart-easing slow second section.”
Paul Driver
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Ludwig van Beethoven (4 CDs)
Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15
Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58
Rondo, WoO 6
Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 19)
Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 73 'Emperor'
Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 37
Piano Concerto, Op. 61
Fantasia, Op. 80
Piano Concerto, WoO 4
Triple Concerto, Op. 56

Tasmin Little, violin - Tim Hugh, cello - Orchestra of Opera North,
Howard Shelley, pianist
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Chandos Records
Buy the CD from:
The Classical Shop via Chandos
Amazon
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Buy from Amazon France
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France
Germany
USA
REVIEWS:
Pianist Magazine - Editor's Choice (February-March 2013)
“... what makes this set so unique and appealing is the commitment and freshness Shelley brings to the lesser-known works. Tasmin Little and Tim Hugh are the stars in the Triple Concert, and its good to see that the pianist is not afraid to take himself out of the limelight...” *****"
Marius Dawn
 
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