MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW Plain text for smartphones & printers


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 


Support us financially by purchasing this from
Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)
Sonata for Althorn and Piano (1943) [11:39]
Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948) [21:32]
Sonata for Trombone and Piano (1941) [11:11]
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1935) [11:31]
Sonata for Trumpet and Piano (1939) [16:12]
Teunis van der Zwart (alt horn); Alexander Rudin (cello); Gérard Costes (trombone); Isabelle Faust (violin); Jeroen Berwaerts (trumpet); Alexander Melnikov (piano)
rec. September-December 2013, Teldex Studio, Berlin
HARMONIA MUNDI HMC905271 [71:09]

Hindemith’s tally of over thirty sonatas proves a fertile portfolio for programmatic reasons in this disc. Its selective approach is admirable, in that it centres on those works written in and after 1935 – the year he was accused of spreading musical Bolshevism. By the following year his music was expunged from concert performance in Germany. This disc, then, charts what may be termed the ‘second wave’ of sonata compositions, after those composed in his early creative period up to the mid-1920s, and takes him to his American exile.

The still centre – often not so still – of this programme is Alexander Melnikov, the pianist who anchors every sonata with his astute, technically precise playing. If, in relation to Hindemith sonata programmes, your mind turns to a very different kind of controlling pianistic genius – Glenn Gould – you should be aware that their approaches could not be more diametrically opposed. Melnikov and Co are lithe, taut, tight and dramatic, where Gould and his eminent cohorts take a very much more leisurely, sometimes recumbent approach.

The Sonata for althorn – called the alto horn in America, or tenor horn in Britain - is played with decisive ebullience and focus by Teunis van der Zwart where the tempo and articulation in the slow movement in particular offers a wholly different perspective to that older Gould recording with Mason Jones. Hindemith’s own programmatic poem is recited and the text is given in the booklet. The Cello Sonata is another work of exile, conceived in 1948 for Piatigorsky. It’s played by Alexander Rudin, a noted exponent of the works of Myaskovsky and he meets its concertante elements head-on, characterising strongly. Here Melnikov’s stalking piano figures and gaunt bass prompts help immensely in creating a rounded performance in a work where thematic independence is prominently to be encountered.

Both the trumpet and the trombone sonatas are in the most capable of embouchures. Gérard Costes manoeuvres far more adroitly in the Trombone sonata than Henry Charles Smith with Gould, fine player though Smith was. Costes’ registral command is impressive, and gets a fine punchy pesante tone in the third movement Lied. Meanwhile trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts plays with a focused core sound, proves witty in the second movement and powerfully expressive in the Trauermusik, remaining consoling to the end. This is the sole example of similar kinds of tempi being taken by Melnikov and Gould’s colleagues. The Violin Sonata takes us back to the beginning of this particular sequence. Composed in 1935 it’s played by Isabelle Faust who varies her tone between refined and gutsy as the mood dictates. She is conspicuously successful here and forms a splendid duo with the ever-watchful Melnikov.

All the recordings were made in the same studio – Teldex in Berlin - between September and December 2013. The booklet notes are concise and helpful.

There are some front-ranking performances here in a programme that makes chronological and artistic sense.

Jonathan Woolf