Maria Milstein & Hanna Shybayeva - Poulenc: Sounds of War (2015) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist
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01. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942/43, Rev. 1949): I. Allegro con Fuoco
02. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942/43, Rev. 1949): II. Intermezzo: Très Lent et Calme
03. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942/43, Rev. 1949): III. Presto Tragico
04. Sonata for Violin and Piano JW VII/7 (1914/21): I. Con Moto
05. Sonata for Violin and Piano JW VII/7 (1914/21): II. Ballada: Con Moto
06. Sonata for Violin and Piano JW VII/7 (1914/21): III. Allegretto
07. Sonata for Violin and Piano JW VII/7 (1914/21): IV. Adagio
08. Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in F Minor, Op. 80: I. Andante Assai
09. Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in F Minor, Op. 80: II. Allegro Brusco
10. Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in F Minor, Op. 80: III. Andante
11. Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in F Minor, Op. 80: IV. Allegrissimo

The Sonatas recorded on this CD are united by the circumstances which brought them to life – each of these works was composed during wartime. For composers, artistic creation in times of war appears as a necessity, a cry for help and a call to humanity. In their music one can hear the acute urgency of someone whose world is being torn apart and whose life is under threat. Creating during the major conflicts of the previous century, the artists experienced and expressed this distress in many different ways - from direct, descriptive depictions of war horror to nostalgic recollections of quieter past times or even “escape worlds”. As performers, Maria Milstein and Hanna Shybayeva found it fascinating to bring together three very different composers, each reflecting the surrounding turmoil in their own way and musical language.

Francis Poulenc dedicated his Violin Sonata to the memory of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, executed in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.

“In the 1914 Sonata for violin and piano I could just about hear the sound of the steel clashing in my troubled head.” These words of Leoš Janáček give a vivid image of the tormented music of the Violin Sonata, a work which he began composing at the outbreak of World War I and completed only in 1921.

Sergei Prokofiev started to compose his First Violin Sonata as early as 1938 and completed it in 1946, one year after the end of World War II. Surprisingly enough this Sonata, despite its dark and ferocious character, is less directly linked with the war than the Sonatas of Poulenc and Janáček. The impetus should be seen in the growing feeling of fear which dominated during the years of Stalin's repression (especially in the second half of the 1930's).

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