British Violin Sonatas Clare Howick & Simon Callaghan 

• William Walton (1902 - 1983): Violin Sonata:
• 1Violin Sonata: I. Allegro tranquillo12:38
• 2Violin Sonata: II. Variazioni14:18
• William Alwyn (1905 - 1985): Violin Sonatina:
• 3Violin Sonatina: I. Allegro e grazioso03:49
• 4Violin Sonatina: II. Adagio03:36
• 5Violin Sonatina: III. Vivace03:13
• Gordon Jacob (1895 - 1984):
• 6Elegy for Violin & Piano03:05
• 7Caprice02:25
• 8Little Dancer02:13
• Kenneth Leighton (1929 - 1988):
• 9Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 4: I. Allegro molto appassionato04:56
• 10Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 4: II. Lento e liberamente06:33
• 11Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 4: III. Presto energico06:21
• Alan Rawsthorne (1905 - 1971):
• 12Valse caprice "Pierette"03:27
• Lennox Berkeley (1903 - 1989):
• 13Elegy, Op. 33 No. 2a03:28
• 14Toccata, Op. 33 No. 3 (Version for Violin & Piano)01:52
• Total Runtime01:11:54

Info for British Violin Sonatas

SOMM Recordings pays tribute to the remarkable flourishing of British Violin Sonatas in the 20th century with a collection of music for violin and piano by six key figures of the modern chamber music renaissance in Britain. Making her debut on SOMM, violinist Clare Howick’s championing of this repertoire prompted iclassical to declare ‘the record-buying public owe [her] a debt of gratitude’. She is accompanied by pianist Simon Callaghan. From the middle of the century, and commissioned for Yehudi Menuhin, William Walton’s Violin Sonata is unique in the composer’s oeuvre with its almost constant sense of nervous uncertainty. Composed the same year (1948), Kenneth Leighton’s youthful First Violin Sonata is the product, as Robert Matthew- Walker comments in his authoritative booklet notes, of “a deep-thinking musician of whom everything he was to write, from his earliest compositions onwards, is genuinely felt and unaffectedly original”. William Alwyn’s beautifully proportioned Sonatina (1933) receives only its second appearance on disc here. Composed the following year, Alan Rawsthorne’s Pierrette: Valse Caprice is best remembered from its quotation in the composer’s soundtrack for the 1947 film Uncle Silas. The contrasted Elegy and Toccata from Lennox Berkeley’s 1951 Op.33 reveal a master craftsman in miniature, while three pieces by Gordon Jacob – Little Dancer (1959), Caprice (1969) and Elegy (1972) – all make their first appearances on disc here.

Clare Howick, violin
Simon Callaghan, piano

No biography found.

Booklet for British Violin Sonatas