Customer Reviews

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg - It Ain't Necessarily So

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What separates Salerno-Sonnenberg from other violinists is the pure emotion conveyed in her music. The power, sorrow or joy she expresses at any given moment is almost palpable. In fact, I remember listening to the first track on It Ain't Necessarily So and literally getting goosbumps. It's a stunning Kreisler piece that steadily builds in strength and tempo. Sonnenberg capitalizes on these elements, offering an unforgettable delivery. Many of the tracks on the album emit such raw energy -- It Ain't Necessarily so is not an album that will put one to sleep. Beyond strength, what makes this album worthwhile is the diverse selection of music. Of course Salerno-Sonnenberg interprets Kreisler, but she also plays Gershwin, Kroll, Schubert and even the jazz of Scott Joplin. The one complaint I have about this album is the sonics. For such a great musician, I think EMI could have recorded a little bit more dynamically. But don't let this keep you from owning the album. It's a truly great one.

Salerno-Sonnenberg's passionate, elegant, heartbreaking interpretations of these wonderful selections is perfectly paired with Sandra Rivers at the piano. I shall never forget their performance of "Claire de lune," the Kreisler pieces, or the exquisite Rachmaninov "Vocalise." In her hands, the violin becomes voice and reeds and brass -- transcending itself and taking the audience right along.

Making great music lies in the ability to express things words can't, to touch the soul, capture the moment and move the heart.

It takes a great artist to perform great music!

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg is such an artist and this release is one of her many gifts to the music loving world!

Check out Track #5 - Liebesieid - for a small sampling of the tremendous emotional pull of Nadja's playing. I have several CDs of Itzhak Perman, and Anne-Sophie Mutter, but no violinist matches Nadja's gift of making each piece her own - you know that she truely feels the music - it flows through her - and it isn't just a dry technical playing of the piece.

For over two decades, Nadja has been my favorite musician. This CD is just another hit from one of the greatest violinist in the world. One can not love classical music and not love Nadja.

....In some of her other albums, Nadja takes things a bit too slowly for my taste, but these small "encore" pieces are right up her alley. This record is 71' 12" of pure entertainment. Not that they're easy to perform....

I'll mention a few highlights of the great music Nadja and Sandra Rivers made together....for me, the high point is Georg Kroll's "Banjo and Fiddle"...six of the fourteen tracks are Fritz Kreisler pieces to which Nadja does full justice...the title cut is superbly done, as is the other Gershwin piece, and the one Scott Joplin offering [I wish there had been more].

This is a wonderful album; if you heard Nadja's Brahams Concerto, are ready to forgive her, and give her another chance, this record is for you...you won't be sorry.

Especially for anyone who has had the pleasure of seeing her in a live perfromance - you will enjoy this wonderful CD even more.

Yes, she does: her sound is horribly thin, and she can't play the highest notes strong enough, so that they wither away and disappear into silence. Even the darkest, lowest notes come out weakly, so one can't argue that she has trouble just with the upper registers: her whole playing is terribly bad. She does have
a good vibrato, but I fear that if her sound were not thin, the vibrato would make even the darkest melody sound pathetic.

Hahn is all right (not excellent, nor good, just right for
some provincial recital hall) as long as she keeps to the lower pitch range (perhaps she should be playing the bass fiddle!), Shaham does everything only passably, and Chang has some passion and feeling but no strength to express it, but Salerno-Sonnenberg is bad across the board. There maybe a passably competent technique in her playing (that is, she can get the melody across), but she plays out of tune - the sound is disgusting!

I know how crazy this piece of writing must sound among so many raves, but there's no other way to explain the horribly weak, thin sound of the violin in this recording. Perlman, who suffered all his life from weak health, even in such difficult pieces as Beethoven's Kreutzer sonata was able to produce a full-bodied sound - and this, when he was well past his sixties.

But then again, Salerno-Sonnenberg is not alone in showing such a lack of... no, this is not about inborn talent. I doubt some child can pick up a violin and play in tune without first listening to a competent elder's playing. After the most basic education in music performance, it is just a question of getting a good recording of a piece, and practicing till one gets a relatively equal sound.

I harbored great hopes for Salerno-Sonnenberg when I read about her troubled life, the attacks she had to face from critics, her attempted suicide. I was letting myself be deceived by that old Romantic cliché, that pain makes for good art. But this is not about discovering or rediscovering unknown masterpieces, but about interpreting establish ones, and a Paganini doesn't have the "extended techniques" present in many postmodern pieces where noise passes for music, so in this case a standard called in-tune playing exists, and she doesn't perform up to it. But this judgement depends on my senses. If you don't believe me, you can find out whether I am right, or whether I am just another flea-like critic from the incestuous music business, by comparing Salerno-Sonnenberg's playing to that of any famous solo violinist whose career started in the 60's or 50's - when gesticulating wasn't equated with playing.