Gramophone Magazine
February 2025
Editor's Choice

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin/director), Thomas Kaufmann (cello), Camerata Bern

anon.: Kugikly for Violin and Ukrainian and Russian Panpipes (Arr. for String Ensemble by Jonathan Keren)
Schnittke: Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 1 (Arr. for Cello, Strings and Harpsichord by Martin Merker)
anon.: Cucuşor cu pană sură
Andrzey Panufnik: Concerto for Violin and Strings
Schubert: 5 Minuets and 6 Trios for String Quartet, D. 89: No. 3 (Arr. for String Ensemble by Patricia Kopatchinskaja)
Wyschnegradsky: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 18
Ysaÿe: Exil! Poème Symphonique for High Strings, Op. 25

This programme brings together composers who, for the most part, were compelled to flee their homeland. In 1920, Ivan Wyschnegradsky took refuge in Paris, where he wrote for a quarter-tone piano at a time when, in Russia, the slightest dissonance was considered a political provocation. Andrzej Panufnik left his native Poland in 1954. Alfred Schnittke settled in Hamburg in 1990, eight years before his death, having spent most of his life in the Soviet Union. Although Schubert never moved away from Vienna, the pain and solitude of his inner exile are palpable in his music. Finally, the Belgian violin virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe emigrated on account of the First World War, and it was in the United States, in 1917, that he wrote the melancholy musical poem recorded here, which he called Exil! Is exile nothing but pain and isolation, or also a source of inspiration which, with music, expresses what words cannot say, acting as the ultimate refuge? “Let's listen to what they have to say,” suggests Patricia Kopatchinskaja, herself “uprooted for ever.” She is joined by cellist Thomas Kaufmann and her friends from Camerata Bern.