Bartók, Grieg, Strauss Violin Sonatas New Release with Michail Lifits 

Delightful duo: an impressive debut from Frang and Lifits 

"This disc introduces an impressive duo. Perhaps "introduces" is not the correct term for 25-year-old Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, already a star of the European festival circuit. Anne-Sophie Mutter chose her to play second fiddle (literally) in the Bach Double Concerto on a recent tour. Frang has also recorded Sibelius and Prokofiev concertos, but this is the first time we've heard her in a chamber setting and the result is compelling.

In the Grieg and Strauss sonatas, Frang is accompanied by another young virtuoso. Lifits was born in Uzbekistan in 1982, and won the Busoni International Piano Competition in 2009. As a team they achieve real symbiosis: listen to the way they press forward and pull back in the 3/4 movement of the Grieg sonata, sharpening each nuance and finding the precise textural weight in perfect sync.
Their program is attractive and far from hackneyed. Grieg's Third Violin Sonata is his chamber masterpiece, but I had not heard the youthful First. These artists reveal it to be the exuberant outpouring of an inspired and vigorous young composer.
Frang and Lifits also find warmth and tenderness in the young Strauss's Sonata. In between, Frang gives a strong, detailed rendition of Bartók's "unplayable" solo sonata." 
Phillip Scott, Limelight Magazine, June 2011

"Grieg, Bartók, Strauss *****
Vilde Frang’s micro-sensitive responses to dynamic, articulation and phrasing prove almost too much of a good thing in the gentle swaying of Grieg’s Sonata, but prove a revelation in the heady opulence of the Strauss, which has never sounded so urgently seductive or expressively supple on disc (thanks in part to Michail Lifits’s stunning pianism.) Finest of all is Bartók’s fiendishly demanding Solo Sonata, a virtuoso minefield of technical and musical ingenuity which Frang negotiates with an unflinching sense of musical direction. Another outstanding disc from Frang, who makes even the most well-worn phrases sound as though they have just arrived freshly minted from the composer’s creative workshop. Frang responds to the innocent, swaying lyricism of Grieg’s First Violin Sonata with a probing interpretative spirit that makes every change of mood feel like a vital musical event. Bartók’s scorching amalgam of ethnic folksong, Baroque formal procedures and precipitous musical interfaces inspires Frang to astonishing levels of majestic virtuosity. Frang and Lifits ride the roller-coaster emotional narrative that underpins Strauss’s epic Sonata with an adrenalin-pumping sense of euphoria and hurtling precision."
Julian Haylock, Classic FM Magazine - April 2011

"The young Norwegian presented herself on CD last year with no less than a double concertante of Sibelius and Prokofiev. This programme seduced us; the triple sonatas blow us away. What a daring programme! The Sonata for solo violin by Bartok, Opus 8 by Grieg and Opus 18 by Strauss call for diametric skills. Who, before now, has been so convincing in all three? You would have to look hard…The charm begins immediately. The originality of tone (something so precious nowadays) a heightened virtuosity and a deep sensitivity amaze us in the first of the 3 Grieg sonatas. Vilde Frang makes the anguishes of the 22-year-old composer her own; her performance exudes youthfulness, carefreeness and tenderness. On the piano Michail Lifits is no less stunning: energetic, inspired and impish. Their dialogue in the only sonata by Richard Strauss is effervescent.  A sensuality of timbres, suppleness of tempos, heroism of attacks, all is there to render its generosity (Allegro ma non troppo), its grace (Andante Cantabile) and the stormy finale. Despite the incontestable references in the discography (Heifetz!), one follows the two partners with passion throughout the recording. The young lady’s charm is markedly less present in the Sonata for Solo Violin by Bartok. It is however the most fascinating moment of the CD! The dreaded final page, the last important work of the composer who took refuge in America, propels the instrument into a new universe, not only by the extreme virtuosity of the writing but also by its rhythmic and polyphonic audacity. Vilde Frang storms the initial Tempo di ciaccona. What a personality! A slightly dampened sound quality and the expert use of microphones produces a recording that is startlingly clear. What energy of detail! The search of timbres and the exploration of contrasting sound worlds demands admiration, the audacity of her playing rivals the most prestigious recordings by Menuhin and Gitlis. After having magisterially dominated the fugue, Vilde Frang inhabits all the nostalgia of the adagio (Melodia), using rare colours, from a highly varied vibrato comes an incredible register of nuances. And the finale: ferocious, frenetic, and breathtakingly dynamic. Exceptional!" 
Jean-Michel Molkhou, Diapason (France) - April 2011 

"IRR Outstanding"

This is a singularly impressive recital, both for the choice of music - a mixed programme that works very well as a continuous listen, juxtaposing homespun Grieg, severe yet fascinating Bartók and generously romantic Richard Strauss - and in which the performances are really quite compelling. Such commanding interpretations are made the more so by the musicians being ideally recorded: immediate and vivid, but with space around the instruments, if thankfully no spurious reverberation, and with a just balance respecting that (where applicable) these are duo sonatas, the piano being just as important as the violin.

Grieg's early Sonata receives a very persuasive reading, touchingly melodic and enjoyably indigenous, played by someone who completely identifies with the idiom, and not just because Frang is also Norwegian (although in the folk-fiddling section that may well be the case), and brings to it a deep sense of musicality and technical virtuosity at the service of the score. Bartók's Sonata for Solo Violin, among the composer's last music - written for Menuhin, who initially considered it unplayable - is equally convincing. Frang brings the music to expressive life without distorting Bartók's logic and finely wrought structures. The lovely warm tone that she produced for the Grieg now becomes edgier for the Bartók, but in an entirely appropriate way, as she tackles this hugely demanding work with confidence and insight. The beautiful Melodia movement is suspenseful in its intimacy, the listener hanging on every note, and the fiery, folksy finale (including the ad lib quarter-tones) doesn't descend to showmanship.

The young Richard Strauss wrote his sole Violin Sonata as a young man of 23. Soon instrumental chamber music would be a thing of the past, relinquished to the composing of Lieder, symphonic poems and opera. The sonata is a large-scale work, expansive in its melody and dramatic in its contrasts. Frang and Michail Lifits have its measure and perform well as a team, their interaction is palpable, and she is particularly effective in bringing intensity as well as light and shade to the work; simplicity, too, and heart, as the opening of the second movement (entitled Improvisation) testifies. The solemn (one-minute) introduction to the finale is presented by the piano alone and finds Lifits producing deep bell-like tones from his instrument; the sudden change to a heroic character tests his bravura and he is not found wanting. The finale is highly charged, the performers seeming to ignore the studio's red light and playing uninhibitedly, as if communicating vividly to a - here imagined - audience.

This is a spectacularly fine disc of unhackneyed repertoire in richly expressive performances. Frang is welcomingly 'old-fashioned' in her style and, as I indicated, the recorded sound is equally select. 
Colin Anderson, International Record Review - April 2011