Thomas Riebl’s playing is characterised by delicacy and precision—impressively crafted on his large (171/8-inch) 1735 Testore viola—within the mould of present-day mainstream style. Having studied with Siegfried Führlinger, Peter Schidlof and Sándor Végh, won a number of prestigious prizes, and made his début at the Vienna Konzerthaus aged sixteen, his performing career has gone from strength to strength, encompassing chamber music (with pianists including András Schiff and Oleg Maisenberg, as well as quartets such as the Juilliard and Hagen) and prominent solo appearances.

Teaching is another key element to his work, including a professorship at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg and visiting tutorships at other colleges and annual festivals.

In the nineteenth-century works selected here Riebl demonstrates a well-connected sound, lightness of touch, meticulous grading of vibrato to both tessitura (pitch) and musical context, and a considered and sensitive approach to phrasing and shaping. The careful planning that informs Riebl’s interpretations is illustrated by his advocacy of the ‘one phrase, one colour, one string’ principle, resulting in employment of premeditated portamenti. All his recordings display a broadly similar artistic outlook and, with it, a notable degree of consistency. This includes the two Brahms sonatas (2007), which are clean and shapely renditions, well paced, and technically immaculate, as well as impassioned performances of the Rubinstein Sonata and Glinka Nocturne (both from 1998). The single twentieth-century work here, Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata (also 1998), is delivered with a slightly more astringent application of these technical and musical tools as befits the musical language. This is a fine performance, particularly well recorded, with great clarity of sound (such as the opening pizzicato). Arguably, all of these renditions are a little lacking in individuality, but they all display the attributes of an artist of the first rank who clearly places transmission of musical ideas as his pre-eminent focus. This is, indeed, modern viola playing of the finest order.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Milsom (A–Z of String Players, Naxos 8.558081-84)