Ulf Wallin

Roland Pöntinen

Johannes Brahms

Asked the question ‘How many sonatas for violin and piano did Johannes Brahms compose?’, many lovers of chamber music would probably answer three, and maybe also add their respective keys and opus numbers. When pressed, a number of them would also remember the so-called F.A.E. Sonata, a collaborative effort by the young Brahms, Albert Dietrich and their mentor Robert Schumann. But very few would probably think of the two Opus 120 sonatas, composed in 1894 for clarinet (or viola) and piano, but a year later published in the composer’s own version for the violin. As the range of the B flat clarinet goes a fourth lower than that of the violin, Brahms had been forced to make considerable revisions to the clarinet part – which in turned entailed changes in the piano part, and consequently the printing of a new piano score. The seasoned team of violinist Ulf Wallin and pianist Roland Pöntinen have now decided to record all the Brahms sonatas, and the results are being released on two albums, the first one including the first of the ‘official’ sonatas, No. 1 in G major, Op. 78, the F minor Sonata from Op. 120 and Brahms’s Scherzo from the F.A.E. Sonata. Wallin and Pöntinen round off the programme with transcriptions of two of Brahms’s more lyrical songs.

Brahms: Works for Violin & Piano, Vol. 1

I. Allegro appassionato (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

II. Andante un poco adagio (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

III. Allegretto grazioso (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

IV. Vivace (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

Violin Sonata in A Minor, WoO 2 "F-A-E": III. Scherzo - Allegro

I. Vivace ma non troppo

II. Adagio

III. Allegro molto moderato

O kühler Wald, Op. 72 No. 3 (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

An die Nachtigall, Op. 46 No. 4 (Arr. for Violin & Piano)

Pettersson: Concerto No. 1 for Violin & String Quartet, 2 Elegies for Violin & Piano & Other Chamber Works

Juri Smirnov

Koessler - Works for Violin and Piano

Norrköping Symphony Orchestra

Christian Lindberg

Allan Pettersson

In terms of genre, Allan Pettersson was uniquely single-minded: during his entire career as a composer (1953–80) he produced only a dozen or so works that were not symphonies. By name, Violin Concerto No. 2 is one of these, but it is fair to say that it straddles the divide. Pettersson himself remarked: ‘In reality my work was a Symphony for violin and orchestra. From this results the fact that the solo violin is incorporated into the orchestra like any other instrument.’ It should therefore not come as a surprise that Christian Lindberg has chosen to include this massive 53-minute work in his acclaimed and award-winning series of Pettersson’s symphonies, realized in collaboration with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra. The concerto was written in 1977, 28 years after its predecessor, the Concerto for Violin and String Quartet (1949). In that work, written while Pettersson was still studying, the composer was experimenting with radical ideas that are not to be found in his later compositions. Concerto No. 2 is rather characterized by the central role given to one of Pettersson’s Barefoot Songs – a trait that appears in several other mature works. Throughout the score, the song ‘The Lord walks in the meadow’ provides motivic material but is also quoted extensively. The hugely challenging solo part was first performed by Ida Haendel in 1980, and is here taken up by Ulf Wallin, who with an extensive discography has already proved himself to be one of the most intrepid violinists of today. The album closes with Pettersson’s last musical thoughts: a 207-bar long fragment generally regarded and referred to as a sketch for the composer’s Seventeenth Symphony. The fragment has been performed in public on one or two occasions, but it is only now that a wider public is given the opportunity to hear it.

Brahms: Works for Violin & Piano, Vol. 1

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Brahms: Works for Violin & Piano, Vol. 1

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