Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Two reasons to like Simone Lamsma


 I'm here to plug Simone Lamsma's recording, above, of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 772, and Sofia Gubaidulina’s In tempus praesens. It's a good recording. But first, let me mention something else I enjoy about her. 

If you check out the official website, you'll see that the biography page has this statement, which apparently is so important it is actually posted twice:

This biography is not to be edited without approval. If you wish to amend or shorten this biography, please do so and send it to Sylvia Ferreira for approval prior to publication at sylvia@solea-management.com

We update our biographies regularly. Please destroy all previous biographical material.

Isn't that amusingly arrogant? Not, "please use the current biography," but "Please destroy all previous biographical material." Thank goodness, I don't have any printouts of old biographies of Simone Lamsma laying around the house. What if the wrong person got his hands on it!? Imagine the horror!

In any case, I got interested in Simone Lamsma listening to a live recording of her performing the Shostakovich, and I'm happy to recommend this recording. Starting with this blog post, I want to mention if any album I am discussing is on one of the streaming music services offered free by public libraries in the U.S.; this particular album is on Freegal. 

Here is a video of Lamsma and conductor James Gaffigan talking about the Shostakovich piece:

 

Addendum:  Lamsma also has a brand new recording out, of works for violin and orchestra by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. I couldn't find any early reviews, but it looks promising. 

1 comment:

  1. I have a CD of David Oistrakh playing the Shostakovich First Violin Concerto. I got turned on to that recording by one of my favorite books, The Bear Comes Home by Rafi Zabor. The novel mostly deals with jazz, but that concerto plays a role as well.

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