The fact that Timothy Ridout has recorded a whole album of music for unaccompanied viola before the age of thirty is a telling indication of the meteoric rise of this prodigious, boundary-pushing artist. As is his choice of contrasting the Baroque era (Telemann and Bach) with two figures of modern music, in Britten's rarely heard Elegy and Caroline Shaw's in manus tuas. This programme is a breathtaking ode to the viola over the centuries, played with all the fire of youth.

Sound/Video

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Telemann: Fantasia no.1 in B flat major, TWV 40:14 (arr. for viola): I. Largo
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Telemann: Fantasia no.1 in B flat major, TWV 40:14 (arr. for viola): II. Allegro – Grave – Allegro
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Shaw: in manus tuas (version for viola)
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Telemann: Fantasia no.7 in E flat major, TWV 40:20 (arr. for viola): I. Dolce
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Telemann: Fantasia no.7 in E flat major, TWV 40:20 (arr. for viola): II. Allegro
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Telemann: Fantasia no.7 in E flat major, TWV 40:20 (arr. for viola): III. Largo
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Telemann: Fantasia no.7 in E flat major, TWV 40:20 (arr. for viola): IV. Presto
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Britten: Elegy for solo viola
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Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Simon Rowland-Jones for viola): I. Allemande
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Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Simon Rowland-Jones for viola): II. Courante
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Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Simon Rowland-Jones for viola): III. Sarabande
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Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Simon Rowland-Jones for viola): IV. Gigue
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Bach: Partita no.2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Simon Rowland-Jones for viola): V. Chaconne

Europadisc Review

Celebrating his thirtieth birthday this year, British viola player Timothy Ridout has already made a huge impact on the classical scene, rare for an exponent of his instrument. Two years ago, he was named by BBC Music Magazine among the twelve greatest violists of all time, together with the Nash Ensemble’s Lawrence Power the only living British artist on a list that also included such greats as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. Just a year ago, Ridout’s Harmonia Mundi double-album ‘A Lionel Tertis Celebration’ paid wide-ranging tribute to his illustrious predecessor, while his playing on Berlioz’s Harold en Italie with the Strasbourg Philharmonic under John Nelsons (Erato) impressed us with its ‘pleasingly grainy yet not over-ripe tone’.

Now, for his latest album on Harmonia Mundi, Ridout gives us an unaccompanied solo recital that ranges from the Baroque (Telemann and J.S. Bach) to the 20th and 21st centuries (Benjamin Britten and Caroline Shaw). Alternating between eras, it’s a beautifully balanced and immaculately judged programme, which opens with a transcription for viola of the first of Telemann’s 12 Fantasias for solo violin. Played here in E flat major (a fifth below the original key of B flat), it starts with a brooding Largo where even the swell of the very first note points to the expansive tone that is one of the viola’s sonic advantages. The musical riches uncovered in just this two-and-a-half-minute reveal a depth of musical intelligence that bodes well for the rest of the disc. The ensuing fugal Allegro – punctuated by a plangent central Grave episode before a da capo repeat of the Allegro – sweeps the listener away with its virtuosic flourishes, string-crossing and multiple stopping.

Composed in 2009 for solo cello, and performed here in its authorised version for viola, Caroline Shaw’s in manus tuas captures ‘the sensation of a single moment of hearing’ Thomas Tallis’s eponymous Latin motet. It has rapidly become one of her most recorded works, and in this performance you can hear why: it ranges from glacially halting sounds (including harmonics) to rapid string-crossing that embellishes itself around snatches of the Tallis, building to an impassioned outburst, insistent punctuating pizzicati, and then tracing a sort of reverse journey (the string-crossing fading away glassily) to end with increasingly fragmented phrases. Using just about every string technique in the book, and with a dynamic range to match, this is a test for any player, but Ridout masters its every twist and turn in a performance which is confidently lived-in even when the music itself seems diffident.

The seventh of Telemann’s violin Fantasias (again performed a fifth below the original key) is a lighter, more Italianate affair than the first, and it’s delivered with enormous panache and astonishing agility and athleticism in the spirited faster movements, while opening up (timbrally and expressively) in the central Largo, harking back to the introspective wistfulness of the first Fantasia. Once again, the viola – in the hands of this superb player – uncovers hidden depths, coupled with a stylishness that finds expression through the right hand (i.e. the bow) rather than the left.

A riper tone is deployed in Britten’s haunting Elegy for solo viola (1930), written immediately after the young composer finished his education at Gresham School. Britten himself was a viola player (he was later to inherit his teacher Frank Bridge’s instrument), and he poured all his youthful anxieties and insecurities into this emotional rollercoaster of a work. Plumbing the depths of self-doubt and scaling the heights of angst, this is a hugely challenging work, and (even more than with the Shaw) Ridout grasps the expressive nettle fearlessly but with sustained technical discipline. The ‘grain’ in his playing adds an extra, human dimension to the sound. As it does, crucially, with the final item…

The album closes with surely the greatest single work for unaccompanied stringed instrument in the repertoire: Bach’s second Partita for solo violin. Performed here in a G minor transcription by Simon Rowland-Jones, it takes on new, darker hues than the original. Bach himself liked playing viola (sitting in the middle of an ensemble texture), and he might well have approved of this adaptation. In Ridout’s hands, it is not just the monumental concluding Chaconne that impresses, but also the steadily revealed architecture of the whole, growing from the single note on which it opens and to which it eventually returns. Ridout balances animation with musical intelligence in the dance movements, and poignant coolness in the third movement Sarabande, with tasteful decoration in the repeats.

Ferruccio Busoni recognised the importance of register when he situated his celebrated transcription of the Chaconne in the piano’s tenor register, and there’s equally something very ‘right’ about hearing this massive movement on the violin’s lower-pitched cousin. Ridout’s epic performance combines richness with delicacy, steady pacing with fabulous dexterity from both the left hand and the bow. Tertis recorded this Chaconne over a century ago, but without the luxury of superb modern recording and stylistic knowledge. This new account is a performance to stand along with the greatest on any instrument, a glorious summit on which to end this enormously compelling recital.

Reviews

Ridout’s electrifying cross-string bowing of those bariolage paragraphs in the Shaw and the Bach Chaconne serves to throw into sharp relief his delicately sculpted melodic passages, whether plucked or bowed. And how good it is to hear a fresh recording of the Bach on the darker-toned viola... This is yet another terrific release from Ridout, who again plays a 16th-century Peregrino di Zanetto with all the soul and panache of an Old Master. William Yeoman

Gramophone April 2025

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Timothy Ridout: Telemann, Bach, Britten, Shaw

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