Sonates pour violon

Description

Sans complexe, the young British violinist Jennifer Pike (* 1989) takes on three of the greatest jewels of the French repertoire and related works: Debussy, Ravel, Franck, nothing less. Her track record undoubtedly allows her to meet this challenge with brilliance. Consider that at the age of twelve, she won the prestigious BBC Young Musician of the Year award, which opened wide the doors of all British orchestras to her as a soloist, particularly in the Mendelssohn Concerto with which she won the competition. The critics at the time compared her to the young Menuhin: a playing style full of transparency, without any fuss or affectation, of a deep natural musicality, in contrast to so many young prodigies who come to burn themselves in the spotlight with wings too large for them, with grandiloquent effects of the worst kind. Nothing of the sort with the discreet Jennifer Pike, whose presence is musical rather than bling-bling. Rediscover these three masterpieces in a reading of great purity, underpinned by the finely nuanced accompaniment—can we even speak of accompaniment in this music, where both protagonists each carry all the music on their shoulders in turn?—by Martin Roscoe.©Abeille Musique 2011