Bloch & Ben-Haim: Violin Suites

Both composers are served extremely well on this beautifully recorded disc, Hagai Shaham and Arnon Erez in particular giving a totally convincing performance of Bloch's well-known Baal Shem.... — BBC Music Magazine, March 2007, More…

Release Date: 29th Jan 2007
Catalogue No: CDA67571
Label: Hyperion
Length: 74 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

March 2007

Chamber Choice

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Bloch, E: Baal Shem

14:28

$3.00

$3.75

Hagai Shaham (violin); Arnon Erez (piano)

I. Vidui

3:11

$1.00

$1.25

II. Nigun

6:30

$1.00

$1.25

III. Simchas Torah

4:47

$1.00

$1.25

Bloch, E: Suite Hébraïque

11:34

$3.00

$3.75

Hagai Shaham (violin); Arnon Erez (piano)

I. Rapsodie

5:51

$1.00

$1.25

II. Processional

2:10

$1.00

$1.25

III. Affirmation

3:33

$1.00

$1.25

Bloch, E: Suite for solo violin No. 1

11:07

$4.00

$5.00

Hagai Shaham (violin)

I. Prelude

2:43

$1.00

$1.25

II. Andante tranquillo

2:56

$1.00

$1.25

III. Allegro – Andante

2:46

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Allegro energico

2:42

$1.00

$1.25

Bloch, E: Suite for solo violin No. 2

11:17

$4.00

$5.00

Hagai Shaham (violin)

I. Energico, deciso

2:52

$1.00

$1.25

II. Moderato

2:26

$1.00

$1.25

III. Andante

3:03

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Allegro molto

2:56

$1.00

$1.25

Ben-Haim: Sonata for solo violin in G, Op 44

14:33

$3.00

$3.75

Hagai Shaham (violin)

I. Allegro energico

5:43

$1.00

$1.25

II. Lento e sotto voce

5:01

$1.00

$1.25

III. Molto allegro

3:49

$1.00

$1.25

Ben-Haim: Berceuse Sfaradite

3:23

$1.00

$1.25

Hagai Shaham (violin); Arnon Erez (piano)

Ben-Haim: Improvisation and Dance, Op. 30

7:50

$1.50

$1.85

Hagai Shaham (violin); Arnon Erez (piano)

Reviews
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Reviews

March 2007

Both composers are served extremely well on this beautifully recorded disc, Hagai Shaham and Arnon Erez in particular giving a totally convincing performance of Bloch's well-known Baal Shem. Although on the evidence of this disc Ben-Haïm emerges as a less individual creative force than Bloch, the concluding Improvisation and Dance, brilliantly dispatched by both artists, would perhaps make a welcome alternative to Ravel's much-played Tzigane.

2010

Bloch's two unaccompanied suites date from 1958, the year before his death; they combine a chromatic idiom with a strong sense of tonality.
Occasionally the music seems to lack individuality – the third movement of the First Suite is almost like pastiche Bach and its final cadence is academically predictable – but more often one's attention is caught and held by the expressive melodic writing and, in both suites, by a compelling sense of continuity. Shaham revels in Bloch's demanding yet imaginatively idiomatic violin writing. In the solo suites, as well as the more extravagantly emotional pieces with piano on Jewish themes, he enters wholeheartedly into the feeling of the music yet retains a measure of balance and restraint – the vibrato isn't exaggerated and a feeling of rhapsodic freedom is achieved without sacrificing natural flow.
Bloch's popularity has waned somewhat in recent decades, and the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (1897–1984) is even more poorly represented in the CD catalogue. His Solo Sonata, written for Yehudi Menuhin, is, however, a masterly work, not at all original in form and idiom, perhaps, but full of memorable ideas.
Shaham's playing of the central Lento e sotto voce is stunningly beautiful. And the Improvisationand Dance, a folk-style showpiece after the manner of the Bartók rhapsodies, inspires both Shaham and Erez to brilliant feats of virtuosity.

Hagai Shaham possesses the ideal kind of silver-toned, narrow-vibratoed purity to make these occasionally melodramatic pieces ring true. Rather than fall back on a well-upholstered, opulent sound, he streamlines his tone, adding a special kind of intensity to Bloch’s soaring climaxes. Shaham strikes just the right balance between interpretative cool and swashbuckling bravado in Baal Shem … the recording is excellent throughout’

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