“Into Madness”: Newcomer Tassilo Probst, joined by duo partner Maxim Lando, is releasing his first album. The young violinist is tackling truly virtuosic repertoire, presenting three sonatas for violin and piano by Béla Bartók, George Enescu and Joseph Achron – the last of these being a world premiere recording.
“I love all kinds of music, including Beethoven and Brahms sonatas of course. But for my first recording, I wanted to play unknown sonatas and lay down a real ‘statement’ in the process!” explains Probst in an interview with Malte Hemmerich. The young musician has already made a name for himself on the classical scene. “Tassilo is an exceptional violinist and musician, with a strong will, unique sound and impressive mastery of the instrument”, reports Daniel Hope, who has played host to both Tassilo Probst and Maxim Lando a number of times.
The first work to be heard is Bartók’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor. It is one of the composer’s early works, standing out for its lyrically Romantic harmonies and melodies and so revealing sounds that are somewhat untypical of its composer and strike entirely new tones.
Probst feels as much at home with virtuoso material as with the lyrical repertoire and provides convincing proof of these abilities on “Into Madness”. “In the virtuoso passages, if you like, you can just let it rip, which is a whole lot of fun. People have often told me,” he admits, “that I’m sometimes quite a show-off.”
The Romanian folk atmosphere of Enescu’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in A minor caught the violinist’s fancy as soon as he discovered it on his search for a work for the Enescu competition in which, as the youngest finalist, he won a third place. The interplay between piano and violin was particularly demanding both technically and in its rhythms. The two musicians like making music together and in any case they are good friends. The American pianist Maxim Lando, another very young artist, regularly appears on stage with colleagues like Lang Lang, Daniel Hope or Chick Corea. “There are no limits to the passion, pain, drama, nature, silence, longing, rage and humour that are evoked by this music. In a word: Madness,” comments Lando on their choice of album title.
Enescu’s work was the starting point that led to the never-before-recorded sonata by the Lithuanian-American composer. “This sonata is fantastic musically, but also complete lunacy in places. It’s actually when you’re young and wild that you can make brilliant sense of that sort of thing and just yield to the craziness. This is a sonata where you can see that the album title ‘Into Madness’ really fits. So: a crazy piece. And I’m a crazy guy and I know Maxim is at least as crazy as I am.” In answer to Hemmerich’s question of whether he is really capable of laying down a benchmark in a premiere recording at such a young age, Probst confesses: “I know it’s a big responsibility when you’re the first to record a great sonata that hopefully will later be recorded and performed more often. But that’s the thill of it for me. You feel as if you’re digging for gold! And this sonata is like your gold nugget.” © Berlin Classics