Here is a thoroughly enjoyable recital from the extremely accomplished team of violinist Anne Akiko Meyers and pianist Andre-Michel Schub. Walter Piston’s clean-cut, purposeful Sonatina (1945) evinces a polish and economy of utterance entirely characteristic of its creator. The centrepiece, an Adagio espressivo of Bachian serenity and concentration (marvellously conveyed on this occasion), acts as an ideal foil to the outer movements, both of which have a fine, almost jazzy spring to their heels. The Copland Sonata dates from 1942-3. Following its completion, the composer embarked on Appalachian Spring, a work whose spare-textured strength and deceptively powerful purity are also very much in evidence here. Indeed, this sonata is top-notch Copland, by turns exhilaratingly lithe and memorably chaste – why we don’t hear it more often remains a mystery.
The Nocturne, a slumbering blues of exquisite, twilit beauty, is another striking inspiration, penned by Copland during a visit to Paris in 1926. By contrast, David Baker’s Blues (1966) inhabits an altogether less shadowy, complex world of expression. It is a melodious, uncomplicated essay, described by the composer as “stylistically a marriage of the blues and gospel music”. Last, but not least, there is Ives’s Fourth Sonata (1906-16). Bearing the legend “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting”, it offers the usual endearing mix of sepia-tinted nostalgia, playful pranking, revivalist hymn-tunes and vernacular tunes (the middle movement contains elements of all four).
As I’ve already intimated, performances are consistently stylish and utterly sympathetic. The recording, too, is first-rate. Recommended with enthusiasm. '