L'Aurore is the first solo album on ECM by the German violinist Carolin Widmann, after several releases with the label in other settings. It covers some nine centuries of writing for a single instrument, from an antiphon by Hildegard von Bingen to the Three Miniatures of George Benjamin, and ends with Bach's Partita No. 2 in D minor. Between those poles come Enescu and Ysaÿe, whose pieces widened what the violin could say on its own. ECM describes the programme as her "little encyclopaedia" of the instrument.
The recording was made in July 2021 at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher with Markus Heiland as Tonmeister. Widmann plays a violin by Guadagnini. The booklet contains a conversation between Widmann and the critic Max Nyffeler, translated into English by Friedrich Kunzmann.
Hildegard's Spiritus sanctus vivificans vita appears twice, in two different readings of the same monophonic line, so that the old chant frames the first half of the disc. Enescu's Fantaisie concertante is the solo violin part drawn from his unfinished Symphonie concertante. It lasts about a quarter of an hour, full of double stops and long melodies on the G string. Benjamin's three pieces are brief and pointed: A Lullaby for Lalit, A Canon for Sally and Lauer Lied. Ysaÿe's Fifth Sonata gives the album its title: its first movement, L'Aurore, is a slowly brightening dawn, and its second is a Danse rustique. Bach's partita closes the programme with its great Ciaccona, here taken at a measured tempo.
In The Strad, David Kettle called the album "a deeply rewarding experience". He described her Ysaÿe as "a study in controlled expression, a sunrise that builds and blossoms steadily in joy and colour". Geoff Andrew, writing in Notes & Observations, found her playing "at once lucid and luminous". He noted that her Ciaccona runs a minute or more longer than other versions he knew, with no loss of intensity.
This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2709, released on 17 June 2022, with a booklet conversation between Carolin Widmann and Max Nyffeler.
