Peter Hanson - Schubert: Sonatas for Violin & Fortepiano, Op. 137 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Superb performances of Beethoven Sonatas for Piano and Violin, including the justifiably famous InchKreutzerInch Sonata.

For this new recording, violinist Peter Hanson, one of the most prominent period instrument players of his generation, turns his attention to Mozart's extraordinary and innovative output of sonatas for violin and piano. Hanson is joined by acclaimed keyboard player and regular collaborator Andrew Arthur in this programme of four sonatas (K. 301, K. 304-5 & K. 454), each of which was dedicated to an exceptional woman of the time, with the aristocratic dedication of the 'Kurfürstin' sonatas for the Electress Maria Elisabeth Auguste of Sulzbach (K. 301-6) and K. 454's dedication to Regina Strinasacchi - a performer of particular talent who gave the first performance with Mozart at the piano. For this album, a stunning copy of an original Walter fortepiano is used as well as a striking Guadagnini violin bearing pure gut strings.

Across eight tracks that mesh spacious, jazz-laced composition with fourth-world tonality, saxophonist Joseph Shabason sketches an auditory map of the transcendence, unity, conditioning, and eventual renunciation of his upbringing in an Islamic and Jewish dual-faith household. The resulting album The Fellowship bears the name of the insular Islamic community Shabason's traditionally Jewish parents belonged to from a time before he was even born; a mental and spiritual push-pull which continued shaping, even controlling, his outlook well into his adulthood. As a listening experience The Fellowship follows a chronological arc that spans three generations covering his parents' early lives, his own spiritual and physical adolescence, and his subsequent struggle to eschew the problematic habituations of such a conflicted past. On The Fellowship, as on prior albums that bear his name, Joseph Shabason does what only the best instrumental music makers can tell a story with emotional clarity that conveys even the subtlest of feelings, all without singing a single word. As wordless as ever- with as complex a theme as ever- this album may be his most emotionally articulate yet. Most importantly, those lost in the woods of repression and self-doubt that organized religion can be at it's worst now have The Fellowship to help guide them into a softer light.