Merel Vercammen & Dina Ivanova: Symbiosis
Gutman Records

An impressive debut recording, Symbiosis features Dutch violinist Merel Vercammen accompanied by Russian pianist Dina Ivanova in performances of works by César Franck, Poldwoski, and Mathilde Wantenaar. Vercammen brings an impressive background to the project: she graduated with the highest distinction from the Royal College of Music in London, has been awarded prizes at numerous competitions, and has performed around the world (including in Tunisia, Brazil, Indonesia, and China) and at the prestigious Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall in London. Ivanova is no slouch in the awards department either, the pianist the prize winner of the recent International Liszt Piano Competition in Utrecht.

Recorded over three days in January 2019 at Muziekgebouw Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Symbiosis precedes the Franck work (a favourite of both musicians, Sonata for Piano and Violin in A major is a piece Vercammen has played since the age of fifteen) with two works by female composers. The opening Sonata in D minor is by Poldwoski, aka Irene Regina Wieniawski (1879-1932), who not wishing to take advantage of the reputation of her father, well-known violin composer Henryk Wieniawski, chose to publish her compositions under a pseudonym. The other's by Dutch composer Mathilde Wantenaar (b. 1993), whose delightful Sprookjes (fairytales) was composed about a century after Poldwoski's.

Certainly two of the album's primary selling-points are Vercammen's tone and technique. That her playing is at a high level doesn't surprise—after all, she started violin lessons at the age of five and by fifteen was studying at the HKU Utrecht Conservatory—but that doesn't make it any less captivating. The clear, sweetly singing tone she coaxes from her violin, made by Italian luthier Andrea Postacchini 1820, is also a major reason for the recording's impact.

Written in the French late-romantic style and traversing broad emotional terrain, Poldowski's expressive sonata opens with an andante rich in impassioned outpourings, from yearning to anguished. The scherzo provides a naturally lively counterpoint to the first movement, even if a ponderous exploration exemplifying the character of a melancholic slow movement surfaces after the breezy introductory section. The most powerful of the three has to be the finale, however, which advances through its contrasting episodes—some languorous, others animated and intensely dramatic—with determination. Regardless of the differences between its three parts, the work possesses abundant melodic appeal, too, which enhances its accessibility. Wantenaar's Sprookjes then presents three arresting ‘Musical Tales for Violin and Piano,' the first of which exudes a rather mysterious, nachtmusik character; whereas the equally compact second is more solemn and melancholic, the dream-like flow of the third suggests the kind of enchantment one associates with visually suggestive fairy tales.

The fact that Franck (1822-1890) wrote his Sonata for Piano and Violin in A major for the wedding of a friend made Vercammen wonder if its four movements mightn't be regarded as musical reflections of the stages of love over the course of a lifetime. While that can't be determined conclusively, certainly the four parts can be heard as exploring multiple moods one might associate with marital stages. It could be argued, for example, that the exciting initial throes of romance are evoked by the engaging warmth of the opening “Allegretto ben moderato” or that the restlessness conveyed by the subsequent “Allegro” could be hinting at the doubts married couples face once the initial glow diminishes. However strong an impact the work's aggressive passages make (the alternation between the instruments in the closing “Allegretto poco mosso” when they voice the melody in canon style is particularly memorable), the most engrossing movement is the meditative “Recitativo-Fantasia: Ben moderato” for how wonderfully it shows Vercammen's sensitive rendering of the material.

December 2019