BBC Music Magazine Review: Violin on Stage

Violin on Stage
Works from and inspired by opera and ballet by Gluck, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Waxman and Wieniawski
Bomsori Kim (violin); NFM Wrocław Philharmonic/Giancarlo Guerrero
DG 486 0788   73:16 mins

The catchy melodies from Bizet’s Carmen have been plucked out and reworked for all manner of instruments – with varying degrees of success – but few arrangements come close to Franz Waxman’s violin-and-orchestra showstopper featured on the soundtrack to the 1946 film Humoresque. Just like the Grease medley that gets everyone on the dance floor at a wedding, Waxman’s ten-minute extravaganza packs in all the opera’s best bits, making the listener feel like the red-dress emoji. After an improvisatory Habanera with extended cadenzas, soloist Bomsori Kim tears through Gypsy Dance. The South Korean brings her childhood singing and dancing experience to Michael Rot’s virtuosic transcriptions of the ‘Pas de deux’ from The Nutcracker and Gluck’s ‘Dance of the Blessed Spirits’ (Orfeo ed Euridice), gliding across the imaginary stage in a glorious duet with the NFM Wrocław Philharmonic. Alongside the opera and ballet transcriptions are two original pieces by Wieniawski, the Polonaise brilliante No. 1 in D major and Légende in G minor, a nod to The Henryk Wieniawski International Violin Competition, where Bomsori took second prize in 2016. Violin on Stage was recorded at (an empty) National Forum of Music in Wrocław.

Claire Jackson