Montgeroult, Viotti, Weber & Mendelssohn: Violin Sonatas

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On this release of early Romantic violin sonatas by violinist Sophie Rosa and pianist Ian Buckle, only one work, the Violin Sonata in F major, Op. 4, by the 14-year-old Mendelssohn, has received much exposure from performers. That work and Weber's early Violin Sonata No. 2 in G major, Op. 10b, really a sonatina, receive lively performances, but the big news is the performance of the Sonata in A minor, Op. 2, No. 3, of Hélène de Montgeroult, which is a world premiere. Montgeroult had a life story that one can command to aspiring screenwriters, featuring a stint as the first female professor at the Conservatoire de Paris, a piano improvisation on La Marseillaise that is said to have impressed the inquisitors of the Reign of Terror enough to let her go, illicit love affairs, and more. Unlike the other works on the album, this sonata is a piano sonata with optional violin accompaniment, not a true piano sonata, though that is the only old-fashioned thing about it. Composed in 1800, it has impassioned and irregular outer movements with which Beethoven would have been satisfied at that point in his career, and it qualifies as a major rediscovery. Some of Montgeroult's piano studies have been recorded, but this will very likely lead to more recordings of her rather slender output. Rosa gets her chance to shine on the opening Violin Sonata No. 10 in E major of Giovanni Battista Viotti, where she elegantly renders the clean lines of the Father of the French violin school. Everything here lies somewhere between enjoyable and revelatory, and the performers are to be commended for bold conception and execution.

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