Nachum Erlich - Violin Sonatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was uncompromisingly self-critical about his musical achievements and was only too aware of the long shadow of Ludwig van Beethoven over his creative output. He had composed his Scherzo in C minor in 1853 for a violin sonata collaboration with Robert Schumann and Albert Dietrich, but he had discarded four sonatas for piano and violin before he was sufficiently happy to allow a work in that genre, his Sonata No.1 in G major Op.78 (1878-9), to be published. About seven years elapsed before Brahms returned to the violin sonata genre. He composed his Sonata No.2 in A major Op.100 in 1886 during the first of three summer sojourns in the village of Hofstetten in the Swiss mountains where the Aare flows into Lake Thun. In a remarkable burst of holiday energy, he also wrote his Second Cello Sonata Op.99 and Third Piano Trio Op.101 there, as well as some of his Third Violin Sonata Op.108. Two of Brahms's songs to poems by Klaus Groth, the highly wrought 'Komm bald' (Op.97 no.5; 1885) and 'Wie Melodien zieht es mir leise durch den Sinn' (Op.105 no.1; 1886) are featured in motivic guise in the two principal themes of the first movement of this sonata. Brahms' Sonata No.3 in D minor Op.108 was composed between 1886 and 1888 and dedicated to the conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow, who was a champion of Brahms' oeuvre. It differs from it's predecessors in that it is longer, more dramatic and much broader in design; indeed, it is almost symphonic in scale and is particularly remarkable for it's wide range of intense emotional feeling.

Solstein - Solstein [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/21/2025

Julien Hamelle snapped up Fauré's Berceuse following it's first performance in February 1880. It's success was no flash in the pan either it sold over 700 copies in the first year and became probably Fauré's most frequently transcribed piece. Fauré's Violin Sonata No. 1 claims to be regarded his first masterpiece. He began it in the summer of 1875, shortly after his 30th birthday, and finished it the following year and it was first performed in Paris in January 1877 by the violinist Marie Tayau, with Fauré playing the piano part. Today this work has such a firm place in the repertory, it's hard to imagine how bold and adventurous it must have seemed at that time. By August 1916, when Fauré began his Second Violin Sonata, he had seen much and suffered much not only the outbreak of war, but his increasing deafness which he tried to hide, not always successfully. Ultimately, of course, we do, and may find ourselves marveling at what a powerful and impressive work this self-effacing 71-year-old has produced. In 1897 Ravel began a Violin Sonata, but got no further than the first movement. Ravel's single movement, in sonata form, juxtaposes modal writing, as at the opening, with more chromatic harmonies, including two passages of downward sliding chords that sound like Delius. The joins may not always be totally convincing, but there is no mistaking Ravel's way with a lyrical idea. Ravel's Berceuse, dedicated to his friend Roland-Manuel's son, born the previous 20 June, has an unassuming grace worthy of it's dedicatee, and it's contrasts, as in the early Sonata movement, are largely between modal and chromatic harmonies. The score is marked 'semplice' and the violin is muted throughout, as in Fauré's own Berceuse.