New Mozart Concertos Album From Renaud Capuçon

Mozart: Violin Concertos 1 & 3; Sinfonia Concertante
Renaud Capuçon, violin
Antoine Tamestit, viola
Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Louis Langrée
CD and downloads available May 5 from Virgin Classics
“Working with Louis Langrée is a particular privilege. His Mozart has honesty, purity, and joie de vivre ... grace, in fact.” – Renaud Capuçon

For his second solo concertos CD for Virgin Classics, violinist Renaud Capuçon performs three works by Mozart: the Violin Concertos Nos. 1 (K. 207) and 3 (K. 216) and, with young French violist Antoine Tamestit, the Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola, and orchestra (K. 364). All three works feature the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by fellow Frenchman and Mozart expert Louis Langrée, best known as music director for New York ’s popular “Mostly Mozart” festival, which takes place at Lincoln Center each summer. In addition to his enthusiasm for working with Langrée, Capuçon expresses his admiration for the players of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, with whom he shared a sympathetic approach to the repertoire: “The players’ finesse of articulation and their colors are drawn from chamber music... . This simplicity of approach is essential for me.”

In a recent review, Britain ’s Guardian called the new album “a fine achievement”:

“Now in his early 30s, Renaud Capuçon is one of today’s outstanding violinists – less flashy than some, but a fabulously musical player who is as remarkable a chamber player as he is a concerto soloist. It’s a considerable achievement to make Mozart’s unprepossessing first violin concerto, K. 207 in B-flat, as compelling as he does here, simply through a combination of unfussy phrasing and finely judged articulation. In the G-major concerto K. 216, Capuçon finds the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Louis Langrée the ideal partnership for his relaxed give-and-take in the slow movement, and in both solo concertos the cadenzas by Robert Levin stay just on the right side of garrulousness. The Sinfonia Concertante takes the performance on to another musical plane altogether. Capuçon is partnered by the viola player Antoine Tamestit, who perfectly complements his unfailingly musical phrasing without ever slavishly copying it.”

Renaud Capuçon has a distinguished discography with Virgin Classics, including a solo concerto disc pairing Mendelssohn and Schumann Violin Concertos, chamber music recordings with his brother Gautier Capuçon and friends, and, most recently, a solo album of violin encores entitled Capriccio. BBC Music magazine gave the latter its top rating – five stars for performance and sound – noting, “It seems there is nothing Capuçon cannot do. He maintains the same level of tonal purity and lustrousness at all dynamic levels across all four strings… . His phrasing and timing are immaculate, his intonation ear-ringingly true, and – especially important in this repertoire – his exquisitely subtle use of portamento is such as to rival even Kreisler and Heifetz.”

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