Holbrooke; Rootham; Walford Davies Violin Sonatas
Persuasive performances of pieces from the byways of British music
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: (Henry) Walford Davies, Arthur Benjamin, Joseph Holbrooke, Cyril (Bradley) Rootham
Genre:
Chamber
Label: Epoch
Magazine Review Date: 3/2009
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 63
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CDLX7219

Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Sonata for Violin and Piano No 3, 'Orientale' |
Joseph Holbrooke, Composer
Jacqueline Roche, Violin Joseph Holbrooke, Composer Robert Stevenson, Piano |
Sonata for Violin and Piano No 2 |
(Henry) Walford Davies, Composer
(Henry) Walford Davies, Composer Jacqueline Roche, Violin Robert Stevenson, Piano |
Sonata for Violin and Piano |
Cyril (Bradley) Rootham, Composer
Cyril (Bradley) Rootham, Composer Jacqueline Roche, Violin Robert Stevenson, Piano |
Sonatina |
Arthur Benjamin, Composer
Arthur Benjamin, Composer Justin Pearson, Cello Sophia Rahman, Piano |
Author: Peter Dickinson
This CD is full of surprises. The singlemovement Holbrooke Sonata is strikingly coherent and shows a British composer taking more notice of European models than usual in the mid-1920s. The Walford Davies dates from 1896, the year the composer went to some trouble to visit Brahms and show him some scores. The great man approved but his shadow has fallen on this work like so much British music of the period. However, the Allegretto is pretty and the “Burden” anticipates the serious side of Davies’s Solemn Melody.
Cyril Rootham is even more of a curiosity. The first movement of his 1925 Sonata starts with some harmonic ingenuity but goes on in a notespinning continuity – Fauré in the background rather than Brahms – with a folksy finale.
Arthur Benjamin’s Sonatina arose from the composer’s connection with the cellist Lorne Munroe who must have premiered this Sonatina at the age of about 14. It brings an attractive, light touch from the composer of the Jamaican Rumba.
These are fascinating byways of British music – pieces one never expected to hear – but with performances like these anything could happen. Some of them could even enter the mainstream.
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