SAYGUN Violin Partita. TÜRKMEN Beautiful and Unowned. CETIZ Soliloquy  — Ellen Jewett (vn) — NAXOS 8579043 (65:08)
 
            I found a couple of delightful discoveries in this collection of solo violin music by Turkish composers and some exciting violin playing as well. The major work on the disc is Ahmet Adnan Saygun’s Violin Partita, a 28-minute piece modeled after Bach’s solo violin music but in no way imitative of it. Saygun (1907–1991) studied in Paris with Vincent d’Indy, and when he returned to Turkey, he began composing in a Western classical style while also researching the indigenous folk music of his country. Saygun was well known enough as an ethnomusicologist that Bartók traveled with him to the Anatolian Peninsula of Turkey, focusing on the resemblance between Turkish and Hungarian nomadic tribal influences with their pentatonic elements. (This information comes from violinist Ellen Jewett’s excellent notes.)
I hear influences of Bartók in Saygun’s Partita, which Jewett says is rarely performed in Turkey and has never been previously recorded. In my opinion it is an important discovery and a major addition to the solo violin repertoire. The music is alternately brilliant, evocative, tender, rhythmically vital, and witty. It holds the listener’s attention through all four movements.
            I wish I could be as positive about Onur Türkmen’s (b. 1972) Beautiful and Unowned from 2013, revised in 2017. The composer provided some very intricate program notes, but I didn’t find them helpful in bringing me closer to what seems like a rambling, discursive piece of writing. There can be no reservations about Jewett’s brilliant performance, however.
            In Soliloquy Mahir Cetiz (b. 1977) has composed a very theatrical score. He comments in his notes that in drama a soliloquy often reflects the inner thoughts and psychological states of a character, and he observes that in such monologues one often experiences a flux of emotions. Thus Cetiz’s piece is marked by sudden shifts of mood and color without (as even the composer admits) any logical thread. This approach is risky, but to my ears Cetiz brings it off. The music manages to hold the listener’s attention, much like a fascinating improvisation.
            The recorded sound is just right––close enough to sense how much Jewett is digging into the strings but distant enough to create a sense of the room and an atmosphere. Jewett is a violinist with a deep interest in contemporary music, and she performs everything here with complete involvement and technical mastery.
Henry Fogel
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