SHOSTAKOVICH, PROKOFIEV & WEILL Music for Violin and Piano

This release contains fresh arrangements of well-known piano pieces by Shostakovich and Prokofiev for violin and piano. Also included is a suite transcribed from Kurt Weill's iconic ‘The Threepenny Opera'. All the three original works by the composers were written during the 1910s and 1920s.

“I imagine not every listener will respond positively to this thoroughly unorthodox recital, in which nothing is quite as its composer intended. What cannot be denied is the passionate engagement of the soloist, a big-toned player…[and] an accomplished jazz musician…this long-gestated project has a dangerous exuberance all its own.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2015

Third release on Ondine by the Austrian star violinist Benjamin Schmid contains fresh arrangements of well-known piano pieces by Shostakovich and Prokofiev for violin and piano. Also included is a suite transcribed from Kurt Weill's iconic ‘The Threepenny Opera'. All the three original works by the composers were written during the 1910s and 1920s.

Known for his exceptionally wide repertoire and a great sense of musicality Benjamin Schmid is one of the most versatile violinists of today. Described as "one of the most valuable of today's golden-age-violinists" (The New York Sun), Schmid has performed with orchestras such as Wiener Philharmoniker, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He is also a sought-after jazz violinist. In 2006 the Strad Magazine wrote: "Schmid mesmerises from his very first entry, shaping phrases with a skin-rippling sensitivity to send the spirits soaring. His golden tone, immaculate intonation, faultless technique and total identification with this magical score are truly things of wonder."

Benjamin Schmid is joined in this recording by pianist Lisa Smirnova with whom Schmid has been collaborating in an extensive way for almost 20 years.

Shostakovich wrote to Tsyganov regarding his transcriptions of the piano Preludes Op. 34: "When listening to this transcription I forgot that I wrote these preludes for the piano as they now suit the violin so well."