N. Medtner - Violin Sonatas 1 & 2 / 2 Canzonas with Dance - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

If the piano works of Nikolay Medtner are finally achieving the recognition they merit, the same cannot yet be said for his compositions for violin and piano. This first of two discs of Medtner' five violin and piano works opens with his last and greatest works.

Joachim Raff enjoyed enormous prestige with a reputation as Germany's leading symphonist of his time. He also wrote music for the violin, an instrument he had mastered when young, and for which he wrote with great sympathy. The enduring success of his first two sonatas prompted him to write three more the charming, genial and joyous Sonata in D major, the symphonically conceived Sonata in G minor which, uniquely for Raff's violin works, is cast in a single movement, and a Sonata in C minor that, while often melancholic in tone, is still suffused with his trademark lyricism.

Arthur Honegger is best known for his large-scale oratorios and orchestral works. However, the three Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and the Sonata for Solo Violin, reveal his mastery of intimate forms and ability to combine Germanic traditions with early 20th-century innovations. Spanning nearly thirty years, these alternately passionate and sober, forceful and nostalgic works display Honegger’s lyrical and virtuosic writing for his own instrument. Laurence Kayaleh plays a 1742 Guarnerius violin whose rich singing tone can also be enjoyed on her and Paul Stewart’s acclaimed Naxos recordings of Medtner’s music for violin and piano.