Yuuko Shiokawa & András Schiff - Bach - Busoni - Beethoven (2017) [Hi-Res]

Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff are heard here in an insightful programme of sonatas for violin and piano which begins with Bach’s Sonata No.3 in E major, ends with Beethoven’s Sonata No.10 in G major, and has at its centre Busoni’s Sonata No. 2 in E minor. As on their earlier and widely-admired recording for ECM (featuring Schubert Fantasies), Shiokawa and Schiff play the music with absolute authority and deep understanding.

Most of Johann Sebastian Bach’s chamber music was written in the period 1717-1723, when he was employed as Kappellmeister at the court of Cöthen. Bach wrote six violin sonatas, with the E major sonata standing apart from its companions, as Misha Donat notes in the CD booklet. “Of the two Adagios, the first, with its elaborate violin cantilena, is like the slow movement of a concerto...In the hauntingly beautiful c-sharp minor second slow movement, the melody is shared equally between the two players, at first alternating and then proceeding in contrapuntal dialogue.” The second allegro, meanwhile, is a “dazzling display piece unfolding in a vertiginous stream of semiquavers.”

No other 20th century composer was as deeply steeped in the music of Bach as Ferruccio Busoni, and his second sonata, composed in 1898 and published in 1901, is indebted to both Bach and Beethoven. Its form makes a number of references to Beethoven’s late sonatas, and the final movement incorporates as its variation theme Bach’s chorale “Wie wohl ist mir”. The success of the work marked a turning point for Busoni, who had hitherto invested most of his energies into his life as performer. “Repeated performances of my violin sonata have greatly encouraged me,” he wrote in 1902. “From next autumn I seriously intend to work just as hard as a composer as I have up to now as a pianist.”

Ludwig van Beethoven’s G-major Sonata, written in 1812 for French violinist Pierre Rode, was the last of his violin sonatas, and perhaps the most beautiful and original of them. Misha Donat; “The sonata begins with one of Beethoven’s most magical inspirations: the quiet sound of a violin trill. The trill, and the theme it engenders, is followed by a series of arching arpeggios whose expansiveness seems to open up infinite vistas.”

Yuuko Shiokawa and András Schiff’s Bach-Busoni-Beethoven programme was recorded in Lugano’s Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in December 2016.