Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – Shostakovich & Auerbach: Arcanum (2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Kim Kashkashian introduces a duo with Russian composer-pianist Lera Auerbach. Their first collaborative recording features Auerbach’s viola and piano version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes op. 34, and Auerbach’s own, darker, sonata for viola and piano, Arcanum. The musicians first met at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival in 2010, although Auerbach had long been aware of Kashkashian’s recordings, and the “quality of life-or-death-intensity to her performing, which is rare and wonderful.” Arcanum, accordingly, was written for Kashkashian. Its title, the composer explained in a recent interview, “means ‘mysterious knowledge’: I was fascinated by the inner voice within each of us, some may call it perhaps intuition, some maybe guided meditation, but there is some knowledge that we have, which we may not necessarily verbalize or rationalize. This knowledge allows us to see the truth, to be guided, to seek answers.”

Of Auerbach’s roles as composer and performer in this programme, Kim Kashkashian notes that “Lera performs any piece of music as if she had composed it: she has a way of understanding the perspective of a piece of music, its structure, its character and the colors that go with it.”

Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes for piano (1933) gained renewed popularity through Dmitri Tsyganov’s transcriptions of some of them for violin and piano. Lera Auerbach first turned her attention to violin/piano transcriptions of the preludes Tsyganov had not reworked. In 2008, she set the full cycle for cello and piano, two years later creating a version for viola and piano intended, she said, as a contrasting partner piece to the Sonata for Viola and Piano op 147, Shostakovich’s sombre last work. “This way, violists could enjoy both sides of Shostakovich. The journey through the 24 Preludes gives so much opportunity for colours, for experimentation of different characters, for humour – there is a lot of humour in these Preludes.”

Tracklist:
01. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 1 in C Major. Moderato (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:32)
02. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 2 in A Minor. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:00)
03. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 3 in G Major. Andante (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:10)
04. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 4 in E Minor. Moderato (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:17)
05. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 5 in D Major. Allegro vivace (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (00:41)
06. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 6 in B Minor. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:32)
07. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 7 in A Major. Andante (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:27)
08. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 8 in F-Sharp Minor. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:05)
09. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 9 in E Major. Presto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (00:43)
10. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 10 in C-Sharp Minor. Moderato non troppo (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:13)
11. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 11 in B Major. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (00:59)
12. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 12 in G-Sharp Minor. Allegro non troppo (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:33)
13. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 13 in F-Sharp Major. Moderato (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:15)
14. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 14 in E-Flat Minor. Adagio (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:19)
15. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 15 in D-Flat Major. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:13)
16. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 16 in B-Flat Minor. Andantino (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:22)
17. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 17 in A-Flat Major. Largo (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:20)
18. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 18 in F Minor. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:06)
19. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 19 in E-Flat Major. Andantino (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:50)
20. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 20 in C Minor. Allegretto furioso (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (00:47)
21. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 21 in B-Flat Major. Allegretto poco moderato (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:04)
22. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 22 in G Minor. Adagio (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (02:31)
23. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 23 in F Major. Moderato (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:26)
24. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – 24 Preludes, Op. 34: No. 24 in D Minor. Allegretto (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (Transcribed for Viola and Piano by Lera Auerbach) (01:31)
25. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – Arcanum: I. Advenio (04:50)
26. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – Arcanum: II. Cinis (07:03)
27. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – Arcanum: III. Postremo (05:09)
28. Kim Kashkashian & Lera Auerbach – Arcanum: IV. Adempte (04:53)