For the Record, Op. 339: Curtis Stewart; David Guerchovitch; Fanny Clamagirand

June 29, 2025, 3:14 PM · Welcome to "For the Record," Violinist.com's weekly roundup of new releases of recordings by violinists, violists, cellists and other classical musicians. We hope it helps you keep track of your favorite artists, as well as find some new ones to add to your listening! Click on the highlighted links to obtain each album or learn more about the artists.

Violinist Curtis Stewart.

Seasons of Change
Curtis Stewart, violin

A recomposition of Vivaldi’s "Four Seasons" is the framework for "Seasons of Change," violinist Curtis Stewart's Afrofuturist meditation-dreamscape on climate change, class, and the nature of digital memory. Stewart's music aims to document the effects of climate change on those who are unhoused, incorporating the voices of individuals experiencing homelessness. Through a partnership between the Phoenix Symphony and a healthcare agency called Circle the City, unhoused individuals shared their reflections with Curtis. "My hope is the ethos and pathos of these conversations will drive support of those sitting in symphonic audiences toward those doing the effective work to combat the effects of climate change," Curtis said. BELOW: From the album, "A.Recent.Summer: I"

Imaginaire - Maurice Ravel
David Guerchovitch, violin
Slava Guerchovitch, piano

Brothers David and Slava Guerchovitch bring together two of Ravel's most beguiling and imaginative works for violin and piano, the Violin Sonata No 2 and Tzigane, alongside a piano arrangement of his enchanting Ma mere l'Oye. Violinist David Guerchovitch is first concert master of the Bern Symphony Orchestra. For the Violin Sonata, they drew inspiration from the manuscript of the first performance, which contains not only the indications of Ravel, but also of George Enescu, the first interpreter of the sonata and a great friend of the composer, with whom he had studied. Jacques Louis Albert Charlot, composer and close friend of Ravel, made the transcription of Ma mere l'Oye featured on this recording. Approved by Ravel himself, this transcription reproduces the work in its final form, that of the ballet created in 1912.
BELOW: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: I. Allegretto:

https://youtube.com/shorts/PCJOHbUCoHc?si=Hei5T1PGJ_UmNqjr

Florence Price: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2
Fanny Clamagirand, violin
Han Chen, piano
Malmö Opera Orchestra; John Jeter, conducting

After graduating with degrees in organ performance and piano pedagogy from New England Conservatory, Florence Price embarked on a teaching career in Arkansas in 1906 that lasted just over two decades before she, her husband, and two young daughters were compelled by increasing racist violence to leave her native state and move to Chicago’s predominantly African American South Side. During the decade of the 1930s she made a famous debut with the city’s orchestra and produced two substantial concertos: the romantic Piano Concerto in One Movement and her first violin concerto – an expansive and richly orchestrated work that was apparently never performed during her lifetime. The later Violin Concerto No. 2 was completed just a few months before her death, and these three works represent her entire output in the concerto genre, bookending her compositional life. The soloist for both violin concertos is Fanny Clamagirand, a First Prize winner at both the 2007 Monte-Carlo Violin Masters and the 2005 International Fritz Kreisler Competition. Below: Trailer for the recording.

If you have a new recording you would like us to consider for inclusion in our "For the Record" feature, please e-mail Editor Laurie Niles. Be sure to include the name of your album, a link to it and a short description of what it includes.

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For the Record, Op. 339: Curtis Stewart; David Guerchovitch; Fanny Clamagirand

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