Prism
Works by C Scott, Maxwell Davies, Caroline Shaw et al
Fenella Humphreys (violin)
Rubicon RCD1127 76:30 mins
There’s simply no hiding place with solo violin repertoire. Every vulnerability is exposed to scrutiny, and so much the more when the repertoire itself is largely unfamiliar. Fenella Humphreys is masterful, however, bringing playing of constant allure and vitality to this album which, as she explains, ‘grew out of a longing to keep performing music that I was gifted, arranged or first discovered during the spring of 2020.’
As lockdown retrospective releases go, this is the most diverting and imaginative I’ve yet heard. And while these offerings may well be personal avowals rather than obvious audience pleasers, the best of them, particularly Jessie Montgomery’s Rhapsody No. 1, certainly deserve wider currency. Caroline Shaw’s In manus tuas, loosely derived from an eponymous Tallis motet, is just as mesmerising, and both receive richly atmospheric and visionary performances here.
There are already more transcriptions of Bach’s D minor Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 than you can shake the proverbial stick at, but Humphreys’s version astutely curates more of Bach’s original than most – easily matching the heft and rhetorical gravitas of Bruce Fox-Lefriche’s over-worked violin arrangement, indeed the one you’re most likely to hear performed these days.
I also enjoyed Humphreys’s disarmingly idiomatic playing in works by Satie and Debussy, again heard in her own very pleasing transcriptions. This is a hugely accomplished release, fearlessly and vibrantly performed, and superbly engineered too. Definitely worth a punt, even if you feel this repertoire might not be entirely for you. Michael Jameson