“Modernism” is the title adopted by another “small” label, Klarthe, for a disc with a curious but exciting program. We hear a work by a contemporary Ukrainian composer, Dmitri Tchesnokov, his Violin Concerto from 2016 of an assumed but never provocative modernity, with iridescent reflections and sparkling virtuosity.
Conductor and orchestra give the measure of this intermediate state, which could be uncomfortable, but which installs a powerful, equivocal and strangely grandiose breath. Here is the true and most authentic Shostakovich, who asserts himself here with a mastery of sound and a sense of construction… remarkable.
Bastien seems to treat the orchestra as a large soloist session. By respecting the personality of each musician, he obtains a Shostakovich’s Symphony n°1 sharpened, with unusual timbre and tempos.
After three recordings with her sister Deborah Nemtanu, Sarah Nemtanu unveils her new opus, entitled Modernisme. The solo violinist of the Orchestre National de France focuses on a whole range of Russian music, accompanied by Bastien Stil and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.
The interpretation offered here by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under the direction of Bastien Stil can only captivate.
Bastien Stil conducts with a keen sense of the music’s humour and satire, whereby the second movement is played with full vigour, thus creating exciting contrasts with the more quiet passages.
The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, generously captured in loco in the studio of the Ukrainian Radio, shows beautiful colors and a remarkable cohesion, despite strings sounding a little thin. The conductor Bastien Stil, a newcomer on the international concert scene, brings all his conviction to this music (…).