Schumann: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 121

Robert Schumann's three Sonatas for violin and piano were all composed between 1851 and 1853, and have suffered from neglect like other works from this period in the composer's life.

Here the performers are Ulf Wallin and Roland Pöntinen: a team who recorded their first disc for BIS in 1991, and whose partnership has been described as 'masterfully cultivated ensemble playing' on ClassicsToday.com.

Wallin's credentials in Schumann are firmly established, after his recently released recording of the violin concerto, the Fantasy and the arrangement for violin of the cello concerto has been met with considerable critical acclaim.

After his earlier Hommage à Bach album, played on the same 1837 Érard piano he uses here, Andreas Staier is joined by Daniel Sepec in a programme of considerably later works by Schumann. However, these two violin sonatas and the Gesänge der Frühe of 1853 show no retreat from the composer's ideal: here too, ‘the poet speaks' . . .

‘Ilya Gringolts is a fine advocate for both works, combining brilliance and idiomatic sensitivity’ Gramophone (Arensky/Taneyev) March 09

Ilya Gringolts first release for ONYX.

Gringolts won the 1998 International Violin Competition ‘Premio Paganini’, and was given two awards for the youngest ever competitor to reach the finals, and for the best interpretation of the Paganini Caprices.

He studied at the Julliard School with Perlman and Delay, and is one of 12 young artists selected by the BBC for the highly successful and prestigious New Generation Artists scheme.

His recordings for Hyperion have been praised and he already has a Gramophone Award to his credit for his Taneyev Chamber Music recording with Pletnev, Repin, Imai and Harrell.

He is in demand with major orchestras world-wide.

Violinist Philippe Graffin’s second recording for Onyx sees him partnered once again by pianist Claire Désert, in Schumann’s highly charged second violin sonata and the delightful 3 Romances by Clara Schumann, composed for Joseph Joachim.

The concerto is a rarity – not the D minor violin concerto op. posth, but the composer’s arrangement of his much-loved cello concerto op.129.

Unusual and intelligent programming from Philippe Graffin, who is rapidly gaining a reputation as one of the most insightful and inquisitive violinists of our time.

EMI Classics is pleased to announce the release of a joint recital by the legendary pianist Martha Argerich and Gidon Kremer, one of today’s most original and compelling violinists. The concert was recorded live at Berlin’s Philharmonie in December 2006. The repertoire features Schumann’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 in D minor and Kinderszenen, as well as Bartók’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 and Sonata for Solo Violin. Two encores, Fritz Kreisler’s Liebesleid and Schön Rosmarin round out the release.

“A summit of two musical giants,” wrote the Abendzeitung München, reviewing the concert. “They are chamber music’s dream couple […] The way they communicate musically cannot be surpassed by any other current duo” said the Münchner Merkur. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung summed up the concert with the words “chamber music is alive.”

Interviewed in the film, Gidon Kremer muses about his decades-long partnership with Martha Argerich: “The paradox is that, even though we are not a couple in love, we speak an intimate language through our music of the kind that is usually only spoken between couples in love. It is even possible that, through our music, we can become even more closely entwined than a couple in love can be.”

At first sight, Robert Schumann and Béla Bartók might not appear to have much in common. Schumann represented the German romantic tradition and favoured rich, full harmonies, while Bartók sought to escape from that sound world, his music tending toward “extremes of delicacy or sparseness, or of complexity or roughness, as his vision dictates.” Yet the two composers do have much in common: both were pianist-composers in whose output their own instrument retains a central place yet both had the ambition to reach out and embrace every musical genre; both Schumann and Bartok maintained a strong interest in music education and both promoted the status of music in the wider cultural sphere.

Schumann’s second sonata, in D minor Op. 121, composed in 1851, was dedicated to Ferdinand David, the dedicatee of Mendelssohn’s E-minor Violin Concerto. After Schumann’s death, the sonata was often performed by Joseph Joachim with the composer’s wife, Clara, at the piano. Kinderszenen dates from 1838, a period in which Schumann concentrated on music for solo piano. Kremer comments, “I love listening to Martha from backstage. I love the way she masterfully recreates the fragility of Schumann’s Kinderszenen. It is simply a heart-stopping experience.”

Bartók completed the first of his two violin and piano sonatas in December 1921 and the second the following year. He dedicated both to Jelly d’Arányi, a brilliant young violinist whose playing thrilled him and with whom he fell in love. In both sonatas Bartók treats the two instruments as independent but complementary – they do not share material, as the violin and piano would do in classical duo sonatas. In November of 1943, Bartók met Yehudi Menuhin when he came to play the First Sonata for him, prior to a performance. This meeting inspired the composer’s Sonata for Solo Violin, which Menuhin premiered at Carnegie Hall the following year. Although its structure is traditional and it recalls the first Bach solo sonata, having a fugue as a second movement and a fast triple-time finale, its constant rhythmic inventiveness gives the work a sense of improvisatory freedom.

Recorded Radiostudio DRS Zurich 2006

Awarded the prestigious title of ‘Instrumentalist of the Year’ by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2006, British violinist Anthony Marwood is internationally celebrated for his engaging and insightful performances. For Schumann’s three Violin Sonatas, he is joined by Aleksandar Madžar, recently praised by Classical Music Magazine as matchless ‘in terms of technique and interpretation’.

Considered by many to be the product of a tired mind hovering on the edge of insanity, these richly impassioned works are filled with restlessness, melancholy and fractured lyricism.