Golden Label Nomination - Sometimes when you receive a cd you think: "What are they coming up with now?". A rather conservative fellow like myself can then sometimes be too quick to prejudge. Better listen anyway, thinking it might be a curiosity. And then you quickly realize that there's more to it than you thought…
Vivaldi (1678-1741) is, like Bach, adapted in our time for a variety of instruments. Carillon, accordion, saxophone, percussion of all kinds and one of those forms of percussion is the marimba. A famous work by the grand master of the frivolous concerto, is the concerto for traverso and orchestra in C, RV 443. How would the bound playing of the traverso sound on marimba: hauntingly beautiful. From time to time the marimba gets attention, and that is actually too little, because each time it amazes me how richly you can phrase and nuance on that instrument, you can really portray all palettes of the musical spectrum with it. And so Fumito Nunoya does here as well. Emotion and silky finesse, I can hardly describe it otherwise. The three movements of this virtuoso work move you. The orchestra follows very well, the tempi are not too fast nor do the basses thud as one hears far too often in today's dreadful fashion when one plays Vivaldi. This calls for more.
The Kurpfälzischer Kammerorchester under conductor Johannes Schaefli sets the Concerto for Marimba and Strings by composer Emmanuel Séjourné (1961°) with inviting verve. The marimba picks up on it and immediately you hear again the far-reaching musical sensibility of Fumito Nunoya. Fluently one moves through the simple music that is very accessible, into a slow movement where a violin solo with lots of crème enters with the marimba. In the third movement it is again the marimba that takes the lead role with an orchestra in perfect balance as accompaniment. The concerto sometimes reminds one of some movement from a piano concerto by Rachmaninov if you will.
The third work on the cd starts somewhat avant-garde, then via a turn moves in the second slow section towards a followable melody that is darker in color. Low strong piano chords intensify the tension. A real underwater feeling is created in the second movement, well, you hear the dolphins chirp and squeak. Is this music really their language? No, but their sounds were certainly a strong inspiration for this unusual work, you hear that too in the third movement where you can assume that it is a violent play of a pod of dolphins in the open ocean. For this composition? Marimba Concerto – The Crossed Sonar of Dolphins, by Takatomi Nobunaga (1971°).
The recording quality is a representation of what you would experience in a concert hall. It retains the reverberation, just as you would listen in a hall. It gives a truly natural effect. A right choice.
Anyone who likes something different once in a while and wants to experience the marimba as a fully-fledged concert instrument, will get a very solid reference with this cd.
- WHAT: CD Fumito Nunoya plays marimba concertos
- WHO: Fumito Nunoya – marimba, Benyamin Nuss – piano, Johannes Schaefli – conductor, c
- RELEASE: Oehms Classics OC1891[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv_5N-WkYIc[/embed]