Exile, the latest in violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s growing collection of riveting albums — a vital collaboration with cellist Thomas Kaufmann and Camerata Bern, out now on Alpha Classics — deserves all the attention you can give it.
Exile’s unifying theme is music by 19th- and 20th-century composers who were forced to leave their homelands. In a jointly authored liner note, Kopatchinskaja and Kaufmann cite migration as one of many controversial issues that have risen to the surface in our time of impending global ecological catastrophe, wars, and social and economic injustice. The musical focus is on works by Alfred Schnittke, Andrzej Panufnik, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, and Eugène Ysaÿe, with a short piece by Franz Schubert that reflects the internal isolation that haunted the Austrian composer during his lamentably short life.
Kopatchinskaja’s recordings are so well conceived and executed that every one of them is worth concentrated study. As much as I can understand some critics’ objections to the brightness of her tone — she seems to harbor no desire to become the next Joshua Bell or Itzhak Perlman — her technical brilliance, probing intellect, total and forceful commitment, and willingness to push the interpretive envelope override other considerations.
For readers familiar with Schnittke’s penchant for parody, humor, and musical quotation, his Cello Sonata No. 1 from 1978 will seem a far more radical undertaking. Its three movements are dark, questioning, eerie, ominous — filled with frantic activity, shocking exclamations (as if from one fleeing an enemy), and poignant sorrow that borders on elegiac. The version recorded on Exile, an arrangement by Martin Merker for cello, strings, and harpsichord, injects some wonderful colors and, yes, a bit of humor into the proceedings.
One of the album’s must-hear revelations, Panufnik’s Violin Concerto, occupies 22 minutes of Exile’s generous 75-minute length. The first movement introduces a unique harmonic language that seems to describe a strange and alien universe. As Kopatchinskaja makes her way through this disturbing world, her technical perfection, bite, and energy are sensational. Thanks to the mesmerizing delicacy of her playing, the second movement envelops us in a hypnotic veil of sadness. Panufnik’s writing in the final movement is fantastic. Early on, the overlapping rhythms evoke the image of thousands of ants running around nonstop within their colony.
Around those two major pieces, Kopatchinskaya and Kaufmann insert a short work for string ensemble (originally for violin and Ukrainian and Russian panpipes) and a Moldovan folk song, sung by Kopatchinskaja and another ensemble member. The motivation for including these works is to contrast traditional music from Eastern European with pieces by composers forced to flee those lands. The music is intriguing and the contrast profound.
I was less enamored by Wyschnegradsky’s 11-minute String Quartet No. 2, Op. 18, from 1932. The composer, an advocate of microtonal music, wrote an intellectually lively but musically uninteresting piece whose final movement is far too literal in how it recalls first-movement material.
The album’s concluding selection, Ysaÿe’s ravishing Exil! Poème symphonique for high strings, is an eloquent portrayal of deeply felt longing and struggle.
All in all, this is one of the more compelling recitals you will discover on record this year, featuring wonderful, rarely heard scores. Try to listen in silence, without distraction. This is powerful stuff.
