The title of this debut release by violinist Benjamin Beilman appears to mean nothing more than that he performs a wide variety of music. But that he indeed does, not even touching on one of the Beethoven sonatas that is conventional in such a situation. Beilman's range is wide, and he's aided by a relaxed, organic relationship with pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, his fellow Curtis Institute of Music graduate. Start your sampling at the very beginning: Beilman's reading of the limpid yet suddenly expansive Violin Sonata in A major, ...
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The title of this debut release by violinist Benjamin Beilman appears to mean nothing more than that he performs a wide variety of music. But that he indeed does, not even touching on one of the Beethoven sonatas that is conventional in such a situation. Beilman's range is wide, and he's aided by a relaxed, organic relationship with pianist Yekwon Sunwoo, his fellow Curtis Institute of Music graduate. Start your sampling at the very beginning: Beilman's reading of the limpid yet suddenly expansive Violin Sonata in A major, D. 574 ("Grand Duo"), of Schubert has a strikingly rich lyrical tone in the best American East Coast tradition. Beilman pivots to the emotionally intense Violin Sonata of Leos Janácek, mashing through its increasingly brutal language as if anchored to sanity by Sunwoo, and in the transcription of music from Stravinsky's Le Baiser de la Fée by Kreisler student Samuel Dushkin he is as crisp and affectless as one could wish. Only in the finale Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta of Kreisler...
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