BACH’S LONG SHADOW – Francisco Fullana’s new CD
On 28 May Francisco Fullana‘s second CD will be released by Orchid Classics. On BACH’S LONG SHADOW, the young Spanish violinist explores Johann Sebastian Bach and shows how the composer has influenced him since his earliest childhood.
In addition to Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major, Fritz Kreisler’s Recitativo & Scherzo Op. 6 and Eugène Yasaÿe’s Violin Sonata No. 2 “Jacques Thibaud”, the CD also includes works by Spanish composers with Isaac Albézin’s Asturias (Leyenda) and Francisco Tárrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra. This combination of works and composers illustrates the Spanish origins of the Mallorcan violinist as well as the musical development that is closely linked to Bach’s work.
On May 14, Orchid Classics will release Bach’s Partita in D minor and Joan Valent’s Punta Campanella Chaconne, which will be available digitally as a pre-release under BACH’S LONG SHADOW: the Chaconne Files.
“He [Bach] kept challenging me, always causing me to return to one central question in my quest to bring Bach’s vivid representation of natural beauty to life: What is the role of the performer in these works? I wish I could ask that question to my 9-year-old self, because I feel he could answer with a natural innocence and purity that no adult could. At the same time, I am grateful for the techniques, knowledge and life experience I have acquired over the past years, and with this recording I present a moment frozen in time of my search for that essence that Bach captured in so many ways in his sonatas and partitas. My goal today is to bring together these new tools, this new understanding of the world, together with the pure, natural responsiveness of my 9-year-old self.”
Francisco Fullana will be in Europe for several concerts this coming summer, including a concert with the Balearic Islands Symphony Orchestra, which he will also conduct at the Castell de Bellver in Mallorca (9 July), and a concert at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival with Tomomi Sato on piano and the Bothmer Music Ensemble (15 July), as well as a recital with Matthias Kirschnereit on piano at the Gezeitenkonzerte Festival (2 August). More information about the concerts will be announced soon at Francisco Fullana’s website.
In 2018, Orchid Classics released Francisco Fullana’s debut recording Through the Lens of Time with Alfred Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style for violin and piano with pianist David Fung, Max Richter’s The Four Seasons Recomposed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Carlos Izcaray, and Isang Yun’s Königliches Thema and Salvador Broton’s Variacions sobre un tema barroc for solo violin.
Born in Mallorca in 1990, Francisco Fullana has made a name for himself both as a performer and as the leader of his innovative educational initiative, Fortissimo Youth Initiative. A recipient of the 2018 Avery Fisher Career Grant, he has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Spanish Radio Television Orchestra, Argentina’s National Orchestra, Venezuela’s Teresa Carreño Orchestra, and numerous U.S. ensembles including the Saint Paul and Philadelphia Chamber Orchestras, the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the Vancouver, Pacific, Alabama, and Maryland Symphony Orchestras. He has worked with such noted conductors as the late Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Alondra de la Parra, Christoph Poppen, Jeannette Sorrell, and Joshua Weilerstein as well as with great artists such as Midori, Viviane Hagner, Nobuko Imai, Charles Neidich, Mitsuko Uchida and with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Takács and Cleveland Quartets. Francisco Fullana performs on the 1735 “Mary Portman” ex-Kreisler Guarneri del Gesù violin (A loan from Clement and Karen Arrison through the Stradivari Society of Chicago).
TRACKLIST: BACH’S LONG SHADOW
Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931)
Sonata for Solo Violin, Op.27, No.2 “Jacques Thibaud”
1 Obsession
2 Malinconia
3 Danse des Ombres
4 Les Furies
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Partita No.3 in E major for Solo Violin, BWV 1006
5 Preludio
6 Loure
7 Gavotte en rondeau
8 Menuet I & II
9 Bourrée
10 Gigue
Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909)
arr. Patrick Loiseleur & Francisco Fullana
11 Asturias (Leyenda)
Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909) arr. Ruggiero Ricci
12 Recuerdos de la Alhambra
Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962)
13 Recitativo & Scherzo, Op.6
Encore: Eugène Ysaÿe
Sonata for Two Violins
14 Poco lento, maestoso – Allegro fermo
Stella Chen & Francisco Fullana, violins
