Various Composers - Gypsy Strings (Adam Summerhayes; Emil Chakalov)

Information

1. Traditional - Put out your cigarettes and dance (arr. Summerhayes)
2. Adam Summerhayes - Firefly
3. Traditional - Bulgarian Lament (arr. Summerhayes)
4. Adam Summerhayes - Caravan
5. Grigoraș Dinicu - The Lark (arr. Summerhayes)
6. Adam Summerhayes - Five Naked Ladybirds
7. Adam Summerhayes - Last Train to Barking
8. Traditional - Swifts in Flight (arr. Summerhayes)
9. Adam Summerhayes - Copanitza
10. Adam Summerhayes - Slower One
11. Traditional - Bessarabyanka (arr. Summerhayes)
12. Traditional - Polka (arr. Summerhayes)
13. Adam Summerhayes - Hot Doina

Adam Summerhayes & Emil Chakalov, violin

London Concertante

Date: 2008

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010453

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Review

Put on this exciting music and you’ll be transported to a Hungarian eaterie

Now here’s something different! London Concertante’s leader Adam Summerhayes and the orchestra’s principal second violin Emil Chakalov met when they were both pupils of Yfrah Neaman. They are also, apparently, both besotted with Eastern European folk music, especially of Chakalov’s native Bulgaria. In recent times they have taken to performing Summerhayes’s own – partially improvised – arrangements of some of those folk melodies, and that’s what we have here, accompanied by London Concertante’s 12-player string section. The result is a mix of Django Reinhardt and Jascha Heifetz, gypsy music and jazz. The most obvious point of contact with the classical repertory is with The Lark, traditionally associated with Dinicu but here heard in Summerhayes’s more up-to-date arrangement.

It’s heady stuff, with some thrilling virtuoso playing. To quote artistic director Chris Grist’s accompanying note: “You’ll hear funky grooves, mesmerising, deeply beautiful melodies, and sometimes tunes that are just plain fun.” I guess we do, and there are effective contrasts of major and minor that typify the folk music of Eastern Europe. I especially enjoyed the instrumental colour, cumulative excitement and sheer abandon of Firefly, an original Summerhayes composition. Swifts in Flight is another winner in the same style, and between times the contrasts of Summerhayes’s invention are brought home by the plaintive, hypnotic wailing melody of Caravan.

I’d love to be dining in a Budapest restaurant while this music is being played; but, even at home and in audio only, it provides exciting listening.

-- Andrew Lamb, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Mar08/Gypsy_Strings_CHAN10453.htm

https://www.allmusic.com/album/gypsy-strings-mw0001227274

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Adam Summerhayes is a British violinist.

https://adamsummerhayes.com/

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Emil Chakalov is a Bulgarian violinist who lives in London.

https://emilchakalov.com/

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