Delius: Violin Sonata No. 3

Beneath the shimmering surface of Delius’s little-known violin sonatas are the latent exuberance and nostalgic rapture which have made his orchestral music so popular.

Across the decades separating the B major Violin Sonata of 1892 from the Third Violin Sonata of 1930, Delius developed a unique musical language which leavened the post-Romantic heritage of Wagner with French Impressionism and European and Afro-American folk idioms; an intoxicating mix that moved Sir Thomas Beecham to call him ‘the last great apostle in our time of beauty and romance in music’.

Suzanne Stanzeleit has been praised by The Strad for her “very considerable style… magnificent flourishes and proud rodomontade.”

On this release, Roger Chase plays the celebrated Montagnana viola, which Lionel Tertis used at the height of his career. Here Chase presents four of Tertis’s own arrangements. The Delius Violin Sonatas Nos. 2 and 3, together with John Ireland’s Cello Sonata and Second Violin Sonata (this CD marks the world premiere recording of Tertis’s arrangement of Ireland’s Second Violin Sonata), make a revelatory programme of viola sonatas, the plangent sound of the instrument bringing a new vision to these works.

The viola, with its plangent tone, subtle sonority and lyrical qualities, is often overshadowed by its more brilliant-sounding sibling, the violin.

An accomplished violist himself, Frank Bridge wrote little solo music for this instrument; only the Pensiero and Allegro appassionato were published in his lifetime, the other works on this disc being the composer’s arrangements of some of his violin pieces.

Similarly, Delius’s Third Violin Sonata is heard here in an effective arrangement by the celebrated violist Lionel Tertis, the dedicatee of Bliss’s expressive Viola Sonata.

“A violist of the highest calibre”. Yuri Bashmet

Accorded "Record Of the Month" by Hi-Fi News on its original release in 1974 and the performance is just as relevant and the sound just as brilliant today.