Debussy, Elgar, Respighi & Sibelius: Violin Sonatas

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This is a radiantly engineered album of music composed around the time of the Great War, played with beguiling elegance by James Ehnes and regular playing partner Andrew Armstrong. — BBC Music Magazine, June 2016, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 18th Mar 2016
Catalogue No: ONYX4159
Label: Onyx
Length: 68 minutes

Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2016

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Debussy: Violin Sonata in G minor

Work length13:22

$3.00

$4.20

$5.25

Andrew Armstrong, James Ehnes

I. Allegro vivo

Track length4:42

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

II. Intermede - Fastaque et leger

Track length4:10

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

III. Finale - Très animé

Track length4:30

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Elgar: Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82

Work length26:31

$4.50

$6.30

$7.80

Andrew Armstrong, James Ehnes

I. Allegro

Track length8:31

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

II. Romance - Andante

Track length8:28

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

III. Allegro non troppo

Track length9:32

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

Respighi: Violin Sonata in B minor

Work length26:16

$4.50

$6.30

$7.80

Andrew Armstrong, James Ehnes

I. Moderato

Track length9:30

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

II. Andante espressivo

Track length9:03

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

III. Passacaglia - Allegro moderato ma energico

Track length7:43

$1.50

$2.10

$2.60

Sibelius: 10 Pensées Lyriques, Op. 40: V. Berceuse

Work length2:45

$1.00

$1.40

$1.75

Andrew Armstrong, James Ehnes

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After a rapturous critical reception for their Franck & Strauss Violin Sonatas, [see below] James and Andrew turn their attention to three violin sonatas all composed around the years of World War I. The Sibelius 'Berceuse' also dates from the war years when Finland was isolated from the rest of Europe. Sibelius was short of money and busy writing the 6th and 7th symphonies, and planning his 8th: the six short pieces of Op. 79 were attractive to publishers who were wary of large scale works with little chance of commercial return during the hostilities. Debussy would die in 1918 and had, like Elgar, composed very little during the conflict. 'I want to work,' he wrote to his publisher Durand, 'not so much for myself, as to provide a proof, however small, that thirty million Boches can t destroy French thought'. Elgar told a friend 'I cannot do any real work with the awful shadow hanging over us' he said. Suffering from ill health, Elgar wrote the sonata in Sussex where a copse of gnarled lightning-ravaged trees, near his house on the South Downs, inspired him to embark on three late great chamber works. Respighi s sonata inhabits a heroic late romantic almost Brahmsian world, seemingly unscathed by the devastation of the War to end all wars .

Reviews

June 2016

This is a radiantly engineered album of music composed around the time of the Great War, played with beguiling elegance by James Ehnes and regular playing partner Andrew Armstrong.

June 2016

This programme of First World War-era violin sonatas is about much more than just ravishing sounds. Ehnes and Armstrong are intensely communicative duo partners and both can draw on a limitless palette of colours. They’ve chosen to bring out the darker facets of these three troubled works

May 2016

A well-conceived programme in first class performances.

17th January 2016

Debussy, Elgar and Respighi don’t usually come up in the same sentence, but all wrote their violin sonatas during or immediately following the first world war. James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong make of them a satisfying recital disc that showcases Ehnes’s warm tone and purposeful phrasing

January 2018

Ehnes channels his inner gypsy, enjoying the lower reaches of his 1715 ‘Marsick’ Stradivari and demonstrating more subtle idiomatic credentials ...Gardner has this traditionally well-behaved orchestra fizzing with attitude and brazen ferocity, but there is hard-earned character too, not least in the swarming string passages of the Concerto for Orchestra’s first scherzo and the comparative warmth of the movement that follows.

Debussy, Elgar, Respighi & Sibelius: Violin Sonatas

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