GRIEG Violin Sonatas (Elena Urioste)

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Tom Poster, Elena Urioste

Genre:

Chamber

Label: Orchid Classics

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 77

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: ORC100126

ORC100126. GRIEG Violin Sonatas (Elena Urioste)

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 Edvard Grieg, Composer
Elena Urioste, Composer
Tom Poster, Composer
(12) Songs, Movement: No. 2, Last Spring (Våren) Edvard Grieg, Composer
Elena Urioste, Composer
Tom Poster, Composer
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 Edvard Grieg, Composer
Elena Urioste, Composer
Tom Poster, Composer
Lyric Pieces, Book 3, Movement: No. 6, To the Spring (An den Frühling) Edvard Grieg, Composer
Elena Urioste, Composer
Tom Poster, Composer
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 Edvard Grieg, Composer
Elena Urioste, Composer
Tom Poster, Composer

Grieg’s violin sonatas still seem to get a raw deal on disc. And yet, as the composer himself said, ‘these three works are among my very best, and represent different stages in my development: the first, naive and rich in ideas; the second, nationalistic; and the third with a wider outlook’. They also fill a CD very satisfactorily, with room for a couple of extras such as Elena Urioste and Tom Poster have given us here.

Those two song transcriptions give the disc its title, and they’re utterly beguiling. But the sonatas are the main story, and Urioste and Poster ride out their mood swings with unaffected warmth. They handle the contrasts between rough-cut folklore and high-romantic lyricism – between wintry squalls and limpid, almost Impressionist delicacy – with effortless spontaneity, and the recording (the disc was made at Wyastone Leys) has sufficient closeness to sound like a dialogue and to allow the players to withdraw into a more inward register.

Poster in particular makes the most of that intimacy: listen to the brooding atmosphere and sense of narrative at the start of the Second Sonata, or the way he spins glistening tracery against Urioste’s full-throated song after 3'00" in the first movement of the Third. Urioste is fluid and agile, but there’s a homespun character to her tone which is particularly attractive in Grieg’s folksy finales. The pair’s rubato in those movements can be fairly elastic, which might not be to all tastes. But they maintain the tension throughout, and the Second and Third Sonatas, in particular, have a satisfying sweep. If you’re keen to make the acquaintance of these wonderful sonatas – and why wouldn’t you be? – you needn’t hesitate.

Discover the world's largest classical music catalogue with Presto Music. 

Stream on Presto Music | Buy from Presto Music

Gramophone Print

  • Print Edition

From £6.67 / month

Subscribe

Gramophone Digital Club

  • Digital Edition
  • Digital Archive
  • Reviews Database
  • Full website access

From £8.75 / month

Subscribe

                              

If you are a library, university or other organisation that would be interested in an institutional subscription to Gramophone please click here for further information.