Violinist Coco Tomita, just 19 when this album appeared in 2022, came on the scene as a BBC Young Musician competition strings section winner, and her obvious charisma translates nicely to this well-recorded Orchid Classics release. Simon Callaghan is an able accompanist to a formidable young talent, but Tomita, strikingly, enters solo, with the Impressions d'enfance of George Enescu shorn of its piano part. Tomita has an exceptional ability to get the listener's attention with the sheer elegance of a turn of phrase, and ...
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Violinist Coco Tomita, just 19 when this album appeared in 2022, came on the scene as a BBC Young Musician competition strings section winner, and her obvious charisma translates nicely to this well-recorded Orchid Classics release. Simon Callaghan is an able accompanist to a formidable young talent, but Tomita, strikingly, enters solo, with the Impressions d'enfance of George Enescu shorn of its piano part. Tomita has an exceptional ability to get the listener's attention with the sheer elegance of a turn of phrase, and that's on full display here. There are other short pieces, a nocturne by Lili Boulanger and the Heifetz transcription of Debussy's Beau soir, and for virtuoso chops, a Carmen Fantaisie Brillante of Jeno Hubay, whose music is thankfully emerging from the shadows. The centerpieces are violin sonatas by Poulenc and Ravel. Tomita confidently captures the jazz inflections in Ravel's Violin Sonata No. 2, and she is wise beyond her years in the wartime ambiguity of the Poulenc sonata, with...
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