Eliane Reyes, Aleksandr Khramouchin Sonates Pour Violoncelle et Piano

It was a great idea to unite in one CD two composers who symbolized the first generation of Germanic romanticism: Schubert and Mendelssohn, associated with Richard Strauss who was to incarnate with Mahler the last jolts of post-romanticism. Schubert composed his sonata for arpeggione and piano in A minor, D.821-1824, for an instrument whose very brief existence was the arpeggione. It begins with an Allegro moderato, developed in a passionate tone, but devoid of any feverishness or anxiety, elements that frequently appear in many works by Schubert contemporaries of this Sonata.

Pour les connaisseurs, Georges Onslow, né en 1784, est l'un des rares compositeurs pré-romantiques français à s'être consacré à la musique de chambre. Berlioz rendra hommage à Onslow: "Vous savez que depuis la mort de Beethoven, il tient le sceptre de la musique instrumentale" ainsi que Schumann: "On s'est habitué une fois pour toutes à la manière des trois grands maîtres allemands: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, et en toute justice, on a admis parmi eux, Onslow". Intercalé entre les deux sonates de Onslow nous retrouvons le nocturne de Duport.

The first CD here is generously filled and contains a valuable novelty in the Magnard Violin Sonata, which may well tempt collectors already possessing a good version of the Franck. In the first movement of the latter, where the marking is Allegretto ben moderato, Augustin Dumay and Jean-Philippe Collard create a feeling of serenity at the start not only tonally but also by a tempo of about dotted crotchet = 48, but fine though the playing is, I think the ben moderato has been interpreted too freely here.