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Violin Concerto No. 1 | Viola Concerto | The Lark Ascending
Ralph Vaughan Williams - William Walton - Sergei Prokofiev

Violin Concerto No. 1 | Viola Concerto | The Lark Ascending

Isabelle van Keulen | NDR Radiophilharmonie

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917279320
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Catalog number: CC 72793
Releasedate: 02-11-18
- Isabelle van Keulen live-recorded in an unusual, smart and engaging coupling of two great Concertos coming from the roaring 20s
- Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto and Walton’s Viola Concerto have many points in common
- Isabelle van Keulen once again proves her skill and musical insight both as a violinist and as a violist
- One of Challenge Classics highlights of 2018
Here is a disc whose contents seem odd as it couples the violin concerto of a (still) Russian composer to the viola concerto of an English one. Instead, the coupling is very clever since Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, whose premiere was in 1923 (while the composer was still living in France, a few years before his return to Soviet Union) served as a much-admired model to Walton’s Viola Concerto, whose first performance was played by Paul Hindemith in 1929. The similarities between the two works go beyond the three-movements structure slow-quick-slow and concern themes, accompaniments and the rondo form of the virtuoso central Scherzo.

The smart idea of such unusual coupling came to one of the few great living violinists who can really play the viola with equal skill: Isabelle van Keulen. This glorious disc is crowned by the orchestrated version of Vaughan Williams’ masterpiece The Lark Ascending.
One of German radio best orchestras, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, is conducted by Andrew Manze (Prokofiev), Keri-Lynn Wilson (Walton) and Andrew Litton (Vaughan Williams).