Aylen Pritchin - Brahms: Sonatas For Piano And Violin - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

J. Brahms - Sonatas for Violin & Piano [COMPACT DISCS] date 01/25/2005

Brahms's complete sonatas for piano and violin (Op. 78, 100, 108 and Scherzo from the F.A.E Sonata) are the monumental works that inspire and intrigue chamber musicians as well as classical music audiophiles. With a fresh view of these important pieces, this recording puts the composer first, allowing the protagonist to meet the composer's requirements for the scores. With differentiated phrasing and tempi, Darvarova & Chen rediscover Brahms' violin sonatas in a completely different and new way. GRAMMY®-nominated, award-winning (Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in 2017 and 2018) and a concert violinist since the age of four, Elmira Darvarova caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) woman-concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. As MET concertmaster she has performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. Hailed as InchbrilliantInch by Fanfare Magazine, multi-award winning pianist-composer Zhen Chen has performed as a soloist and chamber music artist at prominent music venues in USA and China, such as Stern Auditorium, Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, David Geffen Hall of Lincoln Center, and China National Centre for Performing Arts.

The Violin Sonatas of Johannes Brahms were the product of much self-critical reflection, and the three surviving works are from a composer mature in years. Composed around the same time as the Violin Concerto (No 1), the C minor Piano Trio and the Second Cello Sonata (Nos 2 and 3), they also echo some of his songs, such as those written to poems by Klaus Groth. Into this Romantic atmosphere come new performances of the three works on Glossa, played by violinist Leila Schayegh (particularly fêted for her recordings of Bach, Caldara and Benda), teaming up here with pianist Jan Schultsz. Schayegh plays a copy of a period violin, whilst Schultsz uses an original 1879 Streicherinstrument. The two players aim to recapture the performing tradition as the composer would have known it, and within which he would have intended his pieces to have been played. Schayegh and Schultsz worked with Clive Brown and Neal Peres Da Costa in their efforts to aim for Inchthe spirit rather than the dead letter of the scoreInch and they pay admirable notice of important interpretative questions for music of this time - and they provide an intuitive musical and emotional response to the lyricism of the first two sonatas and the darker-hued tones of the third, investing these late-nineteenth-century works.