 Voilà un disque admirable et à priser, tant par la qualité des œuvres présentées, une sorte de panorama de l’art de l’alto de la fin du XIXe aux années 60 du XXe siècle, que par celle de l’interprète Luca Sanzò, ce qui n’étonnera pas, ce dernier étant un disciple de Bruno Giuranna. Admirateur éternel de J.S. Bach, Reger lui dédia plus de cinquante de ses compositions. Parmi celles-ci, les trois Suites, écrites un an avant la mort du musicien, dans les tourmentes de la première guerre mondiale, exemplifient particulièrement cet attachement aux rigueurs contrapuntiques et cette dévotion à l’endroit des formes anciennes que Reger savait si habilement adorner d’une expressivité moderne. Le timbre mélancolique et le son chaud de l’alto s’adaptent excellemment à ces œuvres en quatre mouvements mais de modestes proportions, la première, la plus longue, n’excédant pas onze minutes. L’enregistrement est habilement complété par l’hommage à Paganini, Capriccio op. 55 n° 9 de Vieuxtemps, la Cadenza (1984) de Penderecki dans laquelle, après avoir été tenté par les expérimentations d’avant-garde, ce dernier revient à un style plus classique. Lui succèdent la sombre Elegy (1930) de Benjamin Britten, témoignage du mal-être du compositeur à Gresham’s School, et enfin l’Elegie néo-classique (1944) que Stravinski dédia à la mémoire d’Alphonse Onnou, altiste du Pro Arte Quartet de Bruxelles. Des interprétations magnifiques. (Jacques-Philippe Saint-Gerand) Max Reger (1873–1916) is noted for his devotion to Johann Sebastian Bach. In the words of musicologist Massimo Mila, Reger was an “outstanding crafter of chamber music, who loved restoring ancient contrapuntal forms: fugues, passacaglias, chaconnes, suites, etc.” His 3 Suites for Viola Solo Op.131d – completed a year before his death – exemplify this contrapuntal restoration and reinvention. They belong to a collection of works with an ancient feel in the style of Bach (Op.131), which also comprises music for solo violin, for two violins and for cello. The three solo viola suites all emphasise the polyphonic nature of an instrument that to this day is still considered monodic. Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–1881) was a key exponent of the Franco-Belgian school of advanced virtuoso violin technique and a contributor to the founding of the Russian school. His Capriccio per viola sola Op.55 begins with the instruction Lento, con molta espressione, a character that pervades the entire work. It is packed with rapid virtuosic passages that are challenging both for the left hand and the bow, maintaining a constant dialogue across a range of timbres. In the 1970s, following years of avant-garde experimentation, the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (1933–2020) returned to a more ‘classic’ style, with conventional notation and melodies or small melodic intervals at the heart of his works. This is true of his Cadenza for Solo Viola, written in 1984 for violinist–violist Grigorij Zyslin. It is considered a piece in its own right, despite close links with the Viola Concerto written a year earlier. Although it is notated without indication of metre or bar lines, the cadenza has what could be described as a ‘baroque’ slow–fast–slow structure and is based entirely on a descending half-step. At the age of 15, Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was sent to Gresham’s School in Norfolk, where he lived and studied for two years until winning a scholarship to London’s Royal College of Music in 1930. He composed his Elegy for solo viola that year. Discovered only after Britten’s death, it can be seen as a youthful musical reflection and commentary on his miserable boarding school experience. It can be divided into three sections: the first and third are a song of sadness, exhaustion and disappointment; the second an outburst of anger and frustration. The Élégie for solo viola by Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971), composed in 1944, arguably has the structure of a two-part invention, divided up into exposition, fugue and recapitulation, and the various stages highlight the instrument’s polyphony with echoes of Bach.
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