Franziska Pietsch & Detlev Eisinger - Grieg: The Violin Sonatas (2015) [Hi-Res]

As an emerging talent in the GDR, Franziska Pietsch enjoyed special state support. After her father's escape to the West in 1984, two years of reprisals by the regime followed, intensively shaping Franziska Pietsch's understanding of music: deprived of any possibility of playing concerts or taking lessons, her chosen path towards hope - against desperation, refusal, fear and despotism - led inwards. Music became the only language in which she was able to express herself freely and which gave her the necessary strength to withstand external circumstances, continuing to hope for freedom. These were the origins of the intensity and artistic depth which characterise Franziska Pietsch's playing to the present day.

Franziska Pietsch and Detlev Eisinger make their audite debut with chamber works by Edvard Grieg. The three Violin Sonatas represent a major portion of his oeuvre in this field. Grieg composed at a time of national upheaval; his name stood for independence, but also for international diffusion of Norwegian music. The departure towards autonomy did not necessarily favour chamber music. Nonetheless, Grieg attached great importance to it in the styling of his musical language and sense of form. According to the composer, these three Violin Sonatas epitomise central stages in his artistic development: he called the first one 'naïve, rich in models; the second the national; and the third the one with the wide horizon'. Grieg rated these three sonatas amongst his best works.

Franziska Pietsch, violin
Detlev Eisinger, piano