BUSONI: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 / Bagatelles

Album review

Anyone coming to Busoni's music for violin and piano expecting either the big, brash, brilliant music of his middle years or the cool, lean, smart music of his later years will be sorely disappointed. The two sonatas and the four bagatelles are all early works, masterfully accomplished early works, true, but early works nonetheless: a little gawky, a lot passionate, and exceedingly ambitious. And, it should be added, stylistically just about completely uncharacteristic of the later composer. The First Sonata is a big-boned, hard-muscled work that sounds like an Italian Brahms, the Second Sonata is a wide-eyed, large-hearted work that sounds like an Italian Liszt, and the four bagatelles are tiny works that sound like Italian pastiches on a variety of national styles, Austrian in the Wiener Tanzweise, for example, and Russian in the Ride of the Cossacks. But none of them, well-wrought as they are, sing with Busoni's own mature voice, and even fans of the composer usually relegate these works to the pleasant but not especially memorable category. Violinist Joseph Lin and pianist Benjamin Loeb are separately and together superb players -- Lin with his strong, sinewy tone and Loeb with his clean, clear technique -- and they do everything that can be done to make the music clap its hands and sing. Whether or not the song appeals depends on the listener. Recorded at the Country Day School in King City, Ontario, by Bonnie Silver and Norbert Kraft, Naxos' digital sound is a little bit distant, but warm and clear.
© TiVo

Details of the original recording : 66:27 - DDD - Enregistré en août 2005 à la Country Day School, King City, Ontario (Canada) - Notes en anglais & allemand