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Playing of such consummate ease combined with involvement and attention to detail...Simply, this is one of the finest, most musically sensitive recordings to have come my way for some time,... — BBC Music Magazine, April 2018, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 16th Feb 2018
Catalogue No: ALPHA387
Label: Alpha
Length: 52 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

February 2018

Editor's Choice
Presto Recording of the Week

16th February 2018
BBC Music Magazine

April 2018

Recording of the Month
Presto Recordings of the Year

Winner 2018
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2019

Finalist - Chamber

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Poulenc: Violin Sonata, FP 119

Work length17:16

$3.00

$3.90

$5.25

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Polina Leschenko (piano)
Recorded: June 2017
Recording Venue: MC2, Grenoble, France

I. Allegro con fuoco

Track length6:09

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

II. Intermezzo. Très lent et calme

Track length5:51

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

III. Presto tragico

Track length5:16

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Excerpt, Delibes: Coppelia

Work length4:57

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Polina Leschenko (piano)
Recorded: June 2017
Recording Venue: MC2, Grenoble, France

Coppélia: No. 2, Waltz (Arr. E. Dohnányi for Piano)

Track length4:57

$1.00

$1.30

$1.75

Bartók: Violin Sonata No. 2, BB 85, Sz. 76

Work length20:29

$3.55

$6.45

$8.75

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Polina Leschenko (piano)
Recorded: June 2017
Recording Venue: MC2, Grenoble, France

I. Molto moderato

Track length8:40

$1.50

$2.60

$3.50

II. Allegretto

Track length11:49

$2.05

$3.85

$5.25

Ravel: Tzigane

Work length10:09

$1.50

$3.85

$5.25

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Polina Leschenko (piano)
Recorded: June 2017
Recording Venue: MC2, Grenoble, France

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Recording of the Week, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Polina Leschenko perform music by Poulenc, Bartók, and Ravel

16th February 2018

Violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and pianist Polina Leschenko perform sonatas by Poulenc and Bartók alongside Ravel’s Tzigane.

For her third album on Alpha, Patricia Kopatchinskaja is joined by a highly talented pianist whose approach to music is as extremist as hers, Polina Leschenko. Together they explore pieces that have many points in common. The Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi, grandniece of Joseph Joachim, was a "muse" to both Bartók and Ravel. In 1922 and 1923, she premiered the two Bartók sonatas for violin and piano and Ravel dedicated Tzigane to her. He wrote to Bartók: "You have convinced me to compose for our friend, who plays so fluently, a little piece whose diabolical difficulty will bring to life the Hungary of my dreams; and since it will be for violin, why don’t we call it Tzigane?" Of course, Tzigane by Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who has been playing and dancing this music since her childhood in Moldova, does not sound like salon music... After a much-fêted recital at Wigmore Hall in 2017, the Financial Times wrote: " In another life, Patricia Kopatchinskaja might have been a rock star. This is a violinist who loves taking risks . . . But the final reward wasworth waiting for: a denouement of astonishing force."

Reviews

April 2018

Playing of such consummate ease combined with involvement and attention to detail...Simply, this is one of the finest, most musically sensitive recordings to have come my way for some time, and the neat title title ‘Deux’ exactly encapsulates the partnership on display. ... When the recording finished I listened to it all over again – it really is that good.

February 2018

Brimming with personality, individuality and panache; in fact sometimes so much personality that a quick glance at the score is in order, simply to establish exactly what the ratio of Kopatchinskaja versus composer-in-question actually is...Every reading here works like a dream; no doubt in part because the three main works’ Hungarian folk roots are a perfect partner to her own Moldovan folk heritage.

1st March 2018

A feast of edgy, risk-filled music-making...this is playing that looks around the corners of the music and is open to what’s coming next...Bartók’s 1922 Sonata No 2 bristles with energy but also glows with mercurially changing colour.

16th February 2018

Kopatchinskaja is famous for digging into the strings of her instrument like an old-time prospector desperate for gold. She always finds it too, especially in a repertoire where her Middle European folk roots are a real asset. Hungarian and gypsy rhythms haunt Bartók’s mercurial Violin Sonata No 2, here dazzlingly varied in tone colours, although the music-making’s more striking still in Ravel’s Tzigane. This is dispatched with such furious pluckings, squeakings and slitherings that at the end her bow must have been nothing but wisps and tatters. Leschenko is equally fearsome, rippling through notes with dexterous speed.

Record Review 17th February 2018

Tzigane is off -the-scale exciting and improvisatory, Kop conjuring a scarcely unbelievable range of sounds in the opening solo with the freedom and timbral range of an experimental folk musician plus all the technique of a classical virtuoso.

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Recording of the Week, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Polina Leschenko perform music by Poulenc, Bartók, and Ravel

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