English Violin Sonatas
Thomas DUNHILL (1877-1946)
Violin Sonata in E op. 50 (1918) [29:47]
Granville BANTOCK (1868-1946)
Violin Sonata No. 3 (1940) [19:53]
Charles Villiers STANFORD (1852-1924)
Violin Sonata in D op. 11 (1880) [25:39]
Susanne Stanzeleit (violin)
Gusztav Fenyo (piano)
rec. St Michael's Church, Highgate, London, 1994. DDD
REGIS RRC1376 [75:34] 
This anthology of extremely finely played English violin sonatas drawing on
works across six decades has seen some action over the years. It was first
released in the early-mid-1990s as Cala
United CACD88031. It then took a bow as the other half of a disc that
began as Cala
United CACD 88036 but was reissued by Portrait
– a label associated with Regis – including Stanzeleit’s Dunhill, Bantock
and Stanford with her Fricker, RVW and Rawsthorne. If you have the Portrait
or the original Cala you won’t be needing this. If you missed out on these
then don’t delay as the price is pretty much unbeatable for some totally unhackneyed
English repertoire. It addresses a once emaciated sector of the genre. English
chamber music of this vintage got a look-in from Saga (a rather good Ireland
LP with Tessa Robbins) and Lyrita (lots
of Ireland) among much else in the days of the LP but was only seriously
dug and delved when the CD entered the lists. Since then EMI Classics, Chandos
and Lyrita have issued discs but more specialist work has been done by the
BMS (at random: Foulds;
Bowen),
EM
Recordings, Naxos (try the recent Holbrooke
collection) and especially by Dutton who pretty much sweep the field.
The latter is exemplified by CDLX7219
but Dutton Epoch discs in this category are now legion.
Bantock’s three violin sonatas date from 1929 (No. 1 dedicated to Albert Sammons)
and 1932 (No. 2 dedicated to Arthur Catterall). You can catch up with those
two on Dutton
Epoch CDLX7119. Fascinating that all three date from his years of comparative
eclipse after the Great War. A man with a genius for the orchestra he from
then onwards turned more often to the more practical sphere of chamber music
though by no means exclusively. The Cello Sonata is also on Dutton and the
Viola Sonata is due out very soon on Em Marshall's rapidly risen English Music
label. The Third Sonata is a bejewelled essay using themes typical of the
tone poems. Lyrical themes flow like honey. Rather typically Bantock entitles
the central movement The Dryad. He had a thing for Greek classical
idylls as did Bax and a few others. This movement can be thought of as in
the same mode as his symphonies The Cyprian Goddess and the Pagan.
It's rather static and moonlit. It will be remembered that Bantock was a great
evangelist for Sibelius in the UK and that Sibelius dedicated his Third Symphony
to Bantock. Sibelius’s catalogue includes The Dryad, The Wood Nymph
(a quite separate work) and The Oceanides (review).
The lively Bantock finale tends towards salon Kreisler frivolity at first
before catching itself and introducing something slightly more serious though
still animated.
The Second Sonata by Thomas Dunhill is an ambitious and accomplished work
in three capacious movements: serious, passionate, beautiful and big-hearted.
It stands apart from the Stanford and Bantock, very much a grieving and poignant
product of the Great War years. In this and several other senses it can be
grouped with John Ireland's contemporaneous Second Violin Sonata. Each can
speak as a veritable Testament of Youth. For Dunhill this is an impassioned
work in which stormy fervour meets lyrical release in much the same way as
other big violin sonatas of the time including works by Koechlin and Ropartz.
The finale proceeds with a lighter more insouciant heart and sanguine energy.
While Dunhill and Bantock were Royal Academy luminaries Stanford was very
much of the Royal College. His chamber music has much to yield up as Christopher
Howell has reminded us. The eight string quartets should surely be recorded
as an intégrale just as Chandos set out to do with McEwen’s sonatas (review)
and quartets (vol.1
vol.2
vol.3).
The Mendelssohnian rather than Brahmsian delights of this Sonata were written
for the Austrian Ludwig Strauss, Queen Victoria's 'solo violinist'.
I do hope that Stanzeleit and her pianist of choice will turn to other English
sonatas resolutely in the shade including those by Edward Isaacs (1881-1953),
Reginald Redman (1892-1972), Percy Turnbull (1902-1976), Healy Willan (1880-1976),
Alfred Corum (1890-1969) and Walter Thomas Gaze Cooper (1895-1953).
The fine and succinct notes set the scene rather well.
Well worth acquiring and the only place to go for these works. The Dunhill
and the Bantock are indispensable. The Stanford is pleasant but not compelling.
Overall this is a generous and rewarding trio of duo-sonatas made outstanding
by the Dunhill sonata.
Rob Barnett
This is a generous and rewarding trio of duo-sonatas made outstanding by the Dunhill.