Violin Sonatas

Emerging virtuoso Linus Roth presents his calling-card

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Claude Debussy, Felix Mendelssohn, Eugène (Auguste) Ysaÿe, Johannes Brahms

Genre:

Chamber

Label: Début

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 64

Mastering:

Stereo
DDD

Catalogue Number: 5870112

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1838) Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
Felix Mendelssohn, Composer
José Gallardo, Piano
Linus Roth, Violin
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 Johannes Brahms, Composer
Johannes Brahms, Composer
José Gallardo, Piano
Linus Roth, Violin
Sonata for Violin and Piano Claude Debussy, Composer
Claude Debussy, Composer
José Gallardo, Piano
Linus Roth, Violin
(6) Sonatas for Solo Violin, Movement: No. 3 in D minor (Ballade) Eugène (Auguste) Ysaÿe, Composer
Eugène (Auguste) Ysaÿe, Composer
Linus Roth, Violin
A committed player by any standards, German-born Linus Roth, who is now in his late twenties, can certainly claim the virtuosity, self-confidence and sensitivity that Anne-Sophie Mutter – ‘one of his strongest influences’ – praises him for. Roth is at his most engaging in the action-packed unaccompanied Ballade, Op 27 No 3, that Ysaÿe dedicated to Fritz Kreisler, where his playing is dynamically inflected, tonally generous with nicely weighted chords and variegated vibrato: he arrests your attention, really makes your ears prick up.

Mendelssohn’s exuberant first movement is suitably intense, the lightly bowed fast finale a bright, capricious scherzo in the composer’s elfin manner. Both go swimmingly but what most impressed me was pianist José Gallardo’s exceptionally sensitive touch and phrasing at the start of the Adagio slow movement. Roth draws a warm top line but both here and in parts of Brahms’s A major Sonata I could have done with rather more in the way of expressive colouring, more tonal variety.

For comparison, in the Brahms, I turned to Renaud Capuçon with Nicholas Angelich at the piano. While Roth produces the richer tone, Capuçon is a more imaginative interpreter, his quiet playing especially memorable. In Debussy’s first movement Roth bows a nicely brushed second subject (ie, at 1’37”) but he doesn’t seem to quite ‘get’ the whimsical sense of play elsewhere, much of it sounding confident enough but oddly prosaic, and that in spite of some seductive slides and the expected warmth.

Still, in most respects this programme is, as I hope I’ve intimated, an impressive calling card for a significant talent.

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