The violinist Gilles Apap was born in Nice, France, but has been living in California for more than a decade. A protégé of Yehudi Menuhin, he has borrowed from the late violinist a taste for multi-cultural crossover: Apap plays pop, jazz, Irish and gypsy music as well as classical, and doesn’t hesitate to interpolate a raga-like improvisation in the middle of a Mozart Concerto cadenza. This CD is the first published by his own label, and gathers together three of the most beautiful Violin Sonatas written in the 20th century. Subtitled “In the Rumanian folk character”, George Enescu’s 3rd Sonata inhabits a permanently musing, improvisational, trance-like state, at once deeply rooted in Rumanian folk music, and tinted with impressionistic harmonies. Take out the folk element, and you’ll find the same kind of free-spirited, “fantasque” inspiration in Debussy’s late masterpiece. Ravel’s cocktail of refinement, lyricism and deliciously urban humor (Blues) completes this wonderful program. Apap may not always display razor-sharp precision, and he takes it a bit too easy with the text; but his stunningly flexible and generous playing suits these three works as a hand fits a glove. Supported by a warm, gorgeous tone, free of any prejudice or shyness, he grasps every opportunity for expression and infuses it with flamboyant color and imaginative rubato. At the piano, Eric Ferrand-N’Kaoua shares the same impassioned approach, doubled by an impeccable technique. With its round quality and velvet resonance, the perfectly balanced recording ideally completes these wonderful performances.
