Nikolai Roslavets Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 4 & 6 (solomia Soroka)

Hilary Hahn burst onto the classical scene in 1997 with her debut album ‘Hilary Hahn plays Bach’. Hilary has since enjoyed an incredibly successful international career and is considered one of the world’s finest violinists, winning 3 Grammy awards amongst other honours. Hilary is a strong advocate for classical music, leading projects like the specially commissioned ‘In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores’ collection of new compositions and her inspiring #100daysofpractice campaign on Instagram.

Not only was Robert Fuchs an admired friend of Brahms but he nurtured a prodigious number of pupils, among whom were Enescu, Korngold, Mahler, Wolf, and Sibelius who called Fuchs a clever orchestrator, professional to his fingertips, and very happy as a composer. The three Violin Sonatas, composed over a 24-year period between 1877 and 1901, exemplify Fuchs superbly crafted and melodious grace, with soaring Romanticism spiced with occasional Hungarian colour, folkloric themes and vivacious finales.

This is a splendid fellow and musician - with this quote Robert Schumann characterized the then 26-year-old Danish composer-colleague Niels Wilhelm Gade in a letter of January 5, 1844 to his Dutch friend Johannes Verhulst. The works on this release are testimonies of three different creative periods of Gade: an early work is the first Sonata in A major, op. 6 (dedicated to Clara Schumann) - the second Sonata in D minor, op. 21, (dedicated to Robert Schumann) was composed in 1850 - the third Sonata in B flat major, op. 59, (dedicated to Wilma Normann-Neruda) belongs to the circle of his late compositions. Among Gade's last works is the collection Volkstänze i'm nordischen Charakter, op. 62, written in 1886 for the great violinist Joseph Joachim.

Marco Enrico Bossi gained fame as one of the most influential Italian organ virtuosos of his day, and as a composer who helped lay the foundations for a new tradition of instrumental music in a country dominated by opera. Bossi’s First Violin Sonata has cyclical forms and a density of ideas that put it in line with César Franck’s famous sonata, with melodies as expressive as those of Rachmaninov. The Second Violin Sonata recalls a Classical style that refers more to Beethoven and Brahms while displaying the eloquence of Bossi’s personal idiom. Both of these works reveal a composer whose chamber music stands equal to the most renowned works produced in the late 19th century.