Sonates pour violon et piano

Description

The sound recording, first of all, remarkable in definition and presence, is enchanting. It immerses us in the three worlds of these composers with distant aesthetics who were born in the same decade. Deeply weakened by illness, Debussy renounced his Sonata for Violin and Piano, as if he were rejecting the impression of freedom that is its deep hallmark. Yet, from the very first measure, one knows the author of the score is attentive to the tiniest details, even in the Spanish-influenced harmonies of the first movement. The two performers define the sound space of this music with such stretched writing, which concludes in the Iberian scents of a Habanera. It is more the world of opera, specifically that of Katia Kabanova, that opens Janáček's Sonata. The character of the piano could have been more rhapsodic. Nevertheless, the diversity of climates is conveyed with great elegance. It’s as if the still-present romanticism conceals the expressionist and profoundly desperate nature of the score. The two soloists are more at ease in Strauss's Sonata. This transitional work, between the end of studies and the beginning of the first symphonic poems, reveals the composer's personality in full light. The two performers are equal partners: they possess a sense of space and know how to carry the phrases to their last breath. It is a beautiful, radiant reading of the waning romanticism. (Jean Dandrésy)