Ondine OD 1188

Berlioz: Harold in Italy; Overture to Béatrice et Bénédict; Paganini: Sonata per la Gran Viola e Orchestra – David Aaron Carpenter (viola), Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy

For his second CD release, the twenty-five-year-old New York-born violist David Aaron Carpenter is joined by Vladimir Ashkenazy leading the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. Together they perform the symphony with obbligato viola Harold in Italy, which Berlioz originally wrote on a commission from Paganini. The present recording features, for the first time, a more virtuoso solo part written for Paganini.

The coupling is a showpiece, which Nicolò Paganini wrote after rejecting his earlier commission from Berlioz. ‘The Sonata per la Gran Viola displays the highest virtuosic writing for this instrument’, says David Aaron Carpenter, who defines his mission as focusing attention on the viola as a great solo string instrument in its own right.

Also included is Berlioz’s cheerful Overture to the opera Béatrice et Bénédict.