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Track(s) taken from CDA67735

Húsz könnyü kis darab 'Twenty easy little pieces'

composer
subtitled Hungarian Nursery Rhymes and Folk Dances; arranged and re-ordered from Weiner's Op 27 of the same title
arranger

Hagai Shaham (violin), Arnon Erez (piano)
Recording details: June 2008
Jerusalem Music Centre, Israel
Produced by Eric Wen
Engineered by Zvi Hirshler
Release date: July 2009
Total duration: 11 minutes 59 seconds

Cover artwork: The Solitary Cedar (1907) by Tivador Csontvary Kosztka (1853-1919)
Csontvary Museum, Pecs, Hungary / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘Shaham's pungent, occasionally acidic string tone is perfect for Weiner's mixture of extravagance and cool … great elegance and flamboyant ease’ (The Guardian)

‘Highly enjoyable … full of charm and wit … the playing is exemplary … Shaham and Erez make the best possible case for these pieces, duly wearing hearts on sleeve where appropriate’ (International Record Review)

‘Hagai Shaham plays with a large, richly Romantic tone and a feeling for the grand gestures in which the music delivers its message and the ethnic matrix from which it emerged. But he also has the virtuosic flair to put across the most flamboyant numbers’ (Fanfare, USA)

„The excellent Israeli violinist Hagai Shaham and his accompanist of many years Arnon Erez (together they won the 1990 ARD Competition) have recorded Leo Weiner’s two magnificent early violin sonatas … with such devotion and such a feeling for the sensual glow of this music that, from the very first bar, one is totally transfixed by the art of their musical seduction … Hagai Shaham links a perfect technique with the mesmerizing beauty of his fiery sound; he embodies the ideal Hungarian gipsy-violinist, the highly cultivated Prince Charming who will give it 'his all' to cast a spell on his listeners … nowadays, violinists with such charisma have become very rare and should therefore be especially cherished … the old-fashioned magic of Shaham’s sound“ (Stereoplay, Germany)
Weiner took the task of providing educational music for young players very seriously, and the Húsz könnyü kis darab (‘Twenty easy little pieces’, subtitled ‘Hungarian nursery rhymes and folk songs’) is heard here in a transcription for violin and piano by Tibor Fülep (who re-ordered Weiner’s original Op 27 publication and dropped the composer’s descriptive titles for each miniature). As a cycle it ranks with Bartók’s Hungarian folksongs and For children. In these tiny pieces—some of them only a few seconds long—Weiner precisely and often wittily fixes the character of the various songs with a minimum of fuss and not a single wasted note. Nevertheless, he is able—as in the very slightly longer Andante, No 18—to give them full expressive weight.

from notes by Calum MacDonald © 2009

Weiner prit très au sérieux la fourniture de musique pédagogique aux jeunes interprètes; «Berceuses et chants traditionnels hongrois» est le sous-titre de son recueil de Vingt petites pièces faciles pour piano, entendues ici dans une transcription pour violon et piano de Tibor Fülep. Ce cycle rivalise avec les Chants populaires hongrois et Pour les enfants de Bartók. Dans ces œuvres minuscules—certaines ne dépassent pas quelques secondes—, Weiner fixe précisément, et souvent avec verve, le caractère des divers chants dans une économie maximale, sans une note de trop. Ce qui ne l’empêche pas de leur donner—comme dans l’Andante no 18, un tout petit peu plus long—tout leur poids expressif.

extrait des notes rédigées par Calum MacDonald © 2009
Français: Hypérion

Weiner nahm die Aufgabe, pädagogische Musik für junge Spieler zu schreiben, sehr ernst, und seine Sammlung 20 kleine Stücke für Klavier, die hier in einer Transkription für Violine und Klavier von Tibor Fülep zu hören ist, hat den Untertitel „Ungarische Kinder- und Volklieder“. Als Zyklus sind sie Bartóks Ungarischen Volksweisen und Für Kinder vergleichbar. In diesen winzigen Stücken—einige sind nur ein paar Sekunden lang—fängt Weiner den Charakter der einzelnen Lieder mit minimalem Getue und ohne eine einzige Note zu verschwenden, ein. Aber es gelingt ihm trotzdem—wie im etwas längeren Andante (Nr. 18)—ihnen volle Ausdruckskraft zu verleihen.

aus dem Begleittext von Calum MacDonald © 2009
Deutsch: Renate Wendel

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