Sonates italiennes pour violon

Description

A unique collection of Italian violin sonatas from the 19th and 20th centuries in elegant, vernacular and modern studio recordings. Brilliant Classics explores in depth the chamber music traditions of France and Italy in dedicated box sets of violin and cello sonatas by famous and lesser-known composers. When composing violin sonatas in the 19th and 20th centuries, Italian composers naturally drew on an unprecedented legacy of violin compositions, reaching back not only to Paganini but also to the virtuoso violinists of the Baroque era such as Corelli and Geminiani. By the middle of the 19th century, however, the sonata for two instruments had become associated with forms and styles developed in Germany and Austria, especially in the generations following Beethoven. Italian composers sought to balance these influences in their own writing; they wanted to demonstrate a fusion of Italian cantabile violin writing with large-scale formal ambitions borrowed from Germany. The composers in this series all succeeded in such a fusion in their own style. A phenomenal virtuoso, Antonio Bazzini wrote above all with performance in mind, but his sonata is elegantly constructed along classical lines. Ferruccio Busoni had already settled in Germany when he wrote his essential second sonata, but the wild spirit of the Tarantelle still permeates his Scherzo. He and Respighi both drew on Bach and the Baroque period as inspiration for a new neoclassical spirit. Meanwhile, other composers such as Wolf-Ferrari and Pilati wrote long narratives in the style of Brahms. Even into the 20th century, Brahms remains the model for chamber music composers such as Sinigaglia and Bartolucci, who reject modernist fragmentation. The rich chromaticism of César Franck had its own appeal for composers such as Margola, more open to Wagnerian innovations. A Parisian influence can be felt in several composers such as Esposito and Santoliquido. Finally, a more complex approach to harmony in the style of Bartók’s violin compositions brings the sonatas of Castenuovo-Tedesco and Riccardo Malipiero up to date. All these recordings are taken from previous Brilliant Classics albums, praised for the finesse of their technique and interpretation. Compiled in this box set, with a new essay by Peter Quantrill, they tell a vivid and fascinating story of the development of the Italian violin sonata over more than a century.