Violist
Esther Apituley is a celebrity in her native Holland, regularly appearing on television and in concert, both as soloist and leading her Amsterdam Viola Quartet. On her second Challenge Classics release, Viola Voilà,
Apituley strives for a more reflective mood and slightly more conventional program than with her debut Violent Viola. Pianist Rië Tanaka provides accompaniment in the Schubert "Arpeggione" Sonata,
Piazzola's Le Grand Tango, and in short pieces by Drigo and Fauré, the latter drawn from literature for the violin.
Apituley is heard without accompaniment in the Vieuxtemps and
Stravinsky works, and with the Amsterdam Viola Quartet in her own Hydropath and in an arrangement of
Cage's ubiquitous Dream to which Tanaka adds a few notes here and there. Throughout,
Apituley's playing is rich, authoritative, and confident, and in general, Viola Voilà is a delight to listen to based on
Apituley's energy alone. Her original piece Hydropath is an interesting attempt to combine a minimalistic texture developed by the Amsterdam Viola Quartet with a jazzy trumpet solo, played by Hans Dagalet, and an electric bass. Hydropath is a likeable and moderately ambitious experiment that manages to fall a little flat when the jazz-styled part of it gets going. The arrangement of the
Cage work seems the least successful, as the sustain of the strings makes continuous what is supposed to die off in the piano original, depriving Dream of its "dreamlike" atmosphere. It is a nice try, though, and a tad more respectful than some transformations of this popular work. The solo pieces are, in some ways, the most impressive things on this disc.
Challenge Classics' recording is bright, loud, and mildly reverberant, although the most striking things about it is how sensitive it is to the relative dynamics of these pieces; it is truly a top-quality recording. Viola Voilà is an engaging and entertaining disc that goes the extra mile beyond what is normally considered satisfactory for an instrumental recital.