Beethoven: Violin Sonatas

Rachel Podger, “the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin” (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger and Glynn’s second release together.

Period-instrument performances of Beethoven's violin sonatas aren't too common; they pose thorny problems of balance even beyond the question of whether Beethoven wouldn't have preferred modern instruments if he could have had them. But this superbly musical set by violinist Midori Seiler, playing an Italian Baroque violin of unknown manufacture, and fortepianist Jos van Immerseel, on a copy of an entirely appropriate Viennese Walter piano, may well redefine the standard for these works.

2020 saw the release of the first instalment in this three-disc traversal of Beethoven’s violin sonatas – a disc which has garnered distinctions such as Choc de Classica and Cum Laude (Luister), with performances that ‘wed classical verve to a profoundly Romantic spirit’ (Gramophone) in ‘recordings that are conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ (BBC Music Magazine). As Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen open the second disc, they do so with the iconic Spring Sonata, Op. 24. Completed in 1801, the work proved immediately popular with a second edition appearing only months after the first publication.

Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas span the period from 1797-1812, and the G major work ending the series (which he evidently revised prior to its publication in 1816) came as long after the Kreutzer as the difference in opus numbers suggests – the nine intervening years saw the appearance of Symphonies Nos. 4-8 and much else. Stylistically, this last sonata looks forward to his third period and its lyricism differs markedly from the fire of its predecessor, while the other eight are youthfully confident; it is perhaps significant that only two of the whole series are in a minor key.

Previous instalments of the Beethoven sonata cycle from Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen have met with wide acclaim. Described as ‘conversations by a perfect instrumental pairing’ in BBC Music Magazine, the discs have received a Choc in Classica and the recommendation of German website klassik.com, respectively. This the third and final volume brings together Beethoven's last three works in the genre, composed between 1801 and 1812. The centre-piece is the ninth sonata, the famed ‘Kreutzer Sonata’. The title page of the first edition described the sonata as ‘written in a highly concertante style’ and it does indeed surpass everything that had previously been written in the genre, in terms of scale as well as technical and compositional complexity.

The award-winning duo ensemble formed by Christian Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt returns to the masterworks of European chamber music with this new album that includes Ludwig van Beethoven’s three violin sonatas from Op. 30. The expressive and intimate chamber music recordings by the star duo have gathered numerous awards and their previous album also received an ECHO Klassik award in 2017.

The second volume of the Beethoven 'Violin Sonata' cycle, from James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong, follows the critically acclaimed release of 'Sonatas Nos. 6& 9, 'Kreutzer'. This album contains the three early 'Op. 12, Sonatas' (which Beethoven dedicated to his teacher Antonio Salieri) and ends with the early 'Variations on a Theme From Mozart's Marriage of Figaro'.

In the 1950s these recordings would have given a very up-to-date impression, I imagine; the playing is extremely clean there's never a hint of sentimental violin slides or over-use of the sustaining pedal. But nearly half a century later, perhaps we're more conscious of the old-world virtues Schneiderhan's beautiful legato bowing and gentle vibrato, Kempff's full, unforced tone, and a flexible approach from both artists, with finely graded ritardandos and subtle variations of tempo.

There are two really famous Beethoven violin sonatas, the Kreutzer and the Spring. The Kreutzer Sonata inspired the story by Leo Tolstoy, which in turn became the subject of Janácek's First String Quartet, so if you're into comparative studies in the arts, there's a thesis topic for you! The Spring Sonata was featured in Woody Allen's Love and Death, among other places. And perhaps most intriguingly of all, the scherzo of the late sonata, Op. 96, turns up quite clearly in the third movement of Mahler's Second Symphony.