Brett Deubner: Hope
Birs Recordings

As I listen to Brett Deubner's Hope, the word that comes to mind is humility—not what you expect when the release features the American violist only. Yet while he's the sole performer, the impression created is of a musician operating in humble service to the material and to the composers who created it. Certainly there's nothing tentative about Deubner's playing, yet it never comes across as self-indulgent or ego-driven. Consistent with that, the release's five classical solo viola pieces total a modest forty minutes, the result a recording whose content is substantial and its duration concise.

Available in download, CD, and vinyl formats, Hope is merely the latest in a long string of Deubner accomplishments. He's a sought-after soloist who's appeared with more than eighty orchestras in eleven countries and has issued twenty-plus releases on labels such as Naxos, Centaur, Innova, Albany, and now Birs. Testifying to the high esteem with which his playing is held, over fifty viola concertos have been composed for and dedicated to him, including the five on Hope. He doesn't always work alone: he partnered with pianist Allison Brewster Franzetti on the 2021 Navona release Mother Earth and has otherwise performed with artists such as Pinchas Zukerman, the Tokyo Quartet, Vermeer Quartet, and Ransom Wilson. The San Francisco-born violist lives in the New York Metropolitan area and currently is on the string faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music at New York's Queens College.

Three multi-part works by Judith Markovich, Andrew List, and Maurizio Bignone appear on Hope alongside two single-movement settings by Polina Nazaykinskaya and Tommie Haglund. In writing Three Miniatures, Markovich was inspired by the rapidly changing metres of Stravinsky's Three Pieces for solo clarinet. The opening movement engages immediately for Deubner's commanding execution of its acrobatic dance moves, and the third likewise impresses for its freewheeling energy and abandon. It's the eloquent lyricism of the solemn central part that registers most powerfully—the kind of mournful material for which the viola is perfectly suited. List's Three Hymns To Ra deals with the journey the soul undertakes after death as it overcomes struggle in the netherworld to experience rebirth. After a suitably supplicating and hymnal “Evening Prayer,” the work moves on to the animated “Sacrifice” and ecstatic “Rebirth.” Consistent with its title, Bignone's “Obsession” Sonata exudes intense passion as it progresses through its three parts, the roiling first (“La Vecchia dell'Aceto”), the yearning second (“Luminous”), and the relentless third (“Obsession”)—the whole a brilliant showcase for the violist.

Composed in memory of David Arben, a Holocaust survivor and violinist who performed as a soloist and with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nazaykinskaya's “Hope” Sonata-Fantasia receives a spectacular reading from Deubner on technical and emotional grounds. He sustains the elegiac mood magnificently for the full eleven minutes, never wavering in the conviction of his expression and never failing to captivate the listener. Haglund's doleful Cielo Notturno was originally published in 2010 for solo cello, the haunting version for solo viola arriving five years later and the premiere by Deubner in Sweden three years after that. While the pieces by Nazaykinskaya, Bignone, and Haglund are particularly memorable, all five make for a collectively satisfying programme. Hope is a must-have for aficionados of solo viola performance, but it can be appreciated by anyone capable of recognizing the artistry in Deubner's playing.

January 2023