Ahmet Adnan Saygun - Cello & Viola Concertos (Tim Hugh; Mirjam Tschopp)

Information

Composer: Ahmet Adnan Saygun

1. (01) Cello Concerto, Op. 74
2. (04) Viola Concerto, Op. 59

Tim Hugh, cello
Mirjam Tschopp, viola

Bilkent Symphony Orchestra
Howard Griffiths, conductor

Date: 2007
Label: cpo

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Review

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey's greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun's style might be described as "Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel." If you love the composer's First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun's handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It's positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert.

The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It's also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music--and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths. CPO's ongoing series of orchestral and chamber works by Saygun is an important landmark in 20th-century music, and it deserves the broadest possible exposure and support. The sonics are also perfectly balanced and ideally clear. Fabulous!

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Mar08/Saygun_cello_7772902.htm
https://www.amazon.com/Saygun-Cello-Concerto-Op-Viola/dp/B000YPW5IG

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Ahmet Adnan Saygun (7 September 1907 – 6 January 1991) was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music. One of a group of composers known as the Turkish Five who pioneered western classical music in Turkey, his works show a mastery of Western musical practice, while also incorporating traditional Turkish folk songs and culture. His extensive output includes five symphonies, five operas, two piano concertos, concertos for violin, viola and cello, and a wide range of chamber and choral works. Saygun was known not only as a composer but also as a scholar, an ethnomusicologist, and a teacher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Adnan_Saygun

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Tim Hugh studied at Yale with Aldo Parisot and afterwards with Pleeth and Jaqueline du Pre whilst gaining his MA in Medicine and Anthropology at St Johns College, Cambridge. His post as principal cellist of the London Symphony Orchestra has afforded him countless opportunities to work with the world’s most eminent conductors. As chamber musician he plays with the Nash ensemble regularly and has recorded a large part of the piano trio repertoire with the Solomon Trio. Earlier recordings include Faure piano quartets as a member of Domus and numerous recital discs. Hugh is playing on a cello by Zanoli.
http://www.naxos.com/person/Tim_Hugh_326/326.htm
http://www.timhugh.co.uk/index.php?page=biography

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Mirjam Tschopp (born 1976 in Zurich) is a Swiss violinist and violist. Tschopp studied violin with Aida Stucki and Franco Gulli, and viola with Christoph Schiller. Since her debut as a soloist at the age of thirteen, she has enjoyed a varied international career as both violinist and violist. As a soloist she has played with orchestras such as the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, she has performed in ensembles with the likes of Anne-Sophie Mutter, Josef Suk, Ana Chumachenco and Peter-Lukas Graf.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirjam_Tschopp
http://www.mirjamtschopp.com/

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