The Violin Channel caught up with Patricia Kopatchinskaja for a fun game of VC Desert Island Downloads.

Here are the downloads that she selected: 

1. African Rhythms by Gyorgy Ligeti & Steve Reich – Performed by Pierre Laurent Aimard / Aka Pygmies  

“This CD from 2003 is one of the most remarkable ever … the incredibly complex polyphonic and polyrhythmic songs of the pigmies … unlettered Stone Age people living in the African rainforests … and how they inspired modern compositions, especially the Ligeti piano etudes, which are a monument in themselves … The CD illustrates the scope we musicans should aspire to develop and maintain …“

2. Piano Sonatas by Galina Ustvolskaya – Performed by Markus Hinterhäuser

“When Markus Hinterhäuser – a pianist favoured by Galina Ustwolskaja herself – plays her six piano sonatas, his fingers bleed … This is the most powerful and uncompromising music from the limits of human existence … Not for every day, but important to know nonetheless … And after knowing it, nothing is the same anymore …“

3. Contrechant, Music for Solo Clarinet – Performed by Reto Bieri

“A fearless and phenomenal clarinetist playing mostly living composers (Sciarrino, Holliger, Vajda, Eötvös), Reto Bieri masters the most incredible technical difficulties with elegance and utmost musicality … May we all become as courageous and curious as he is …“

4. Beiseit / Alb-Chehr by Heinz Holliger

“Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger started as a prodigy, inventing techniques and setting new standards of playing … Widely read, he composes in the most inventive ways: solo pieces, chamber music, operas … drawing inspiration from everywhere … This CD contains a song cycle on poems by the Swiss poet Robert Walser dedicated to György Kurtag. This is followed by disquieting music to a spoken nightmarish legend from the Swiss Alps, played partly on folk instruments and having a vaguely folkish air. It’s a model of how one can find inspiration from ones own roots. I recently played Holliger’s (extremely difficult, beautiful, mystical…) violin concerto about the outstanding Swiss painter Louis Soutter … This music affected me to my core – I could not sleep for weeks …“

5. Images from a Closed Ward by Michael Hersch – Performed by FLUX Quartet

“Finally a tribute to an American composer and an American ensemble: Michael Hersch (*1971) combines the wide literary culture of Holliger and the uncompromising force of Ustwolskaja. My first encounter with him was this album ​“Images from a Closed Ward” – 13 pieces that do not let you go, played with utter conviction by the marvellous FLUX Quartet … The ghastly CD cover contrasts starkly with the superficial aesthetic mainstream. I recently recorded Hersch’s violin concerto with the amazing ICE Ensemble in New York and I feel that his music is very necessary: It is he who formulates the anxiety and pain that we all feel, when we hear of dying seas, disappearing species, expanding droughts and rising fascism …”