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Paul Juon (1872-1940)
Chamber Music for Viola
Sonata for Viola and Piano in D major, Op. 15 (1901)
Sonata for Viola and Piano in F minor, Op. 82a (1924)
Romanze for Viola and Piano, Op. 7b (1898)
Silhouettes, 2ème série, Op. 43, for violin, viola and piano (1909)
Trio-Miniaturen for violin, viola and piano (1920)
Basil Vendryes (viola), Igor Pikayzen (violin), William David (piano)
rec. 2021, Colorado, USA
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC0389 [67]

Paul Juon is best known to some of us through two Sterling CDs. Of Swiss blood, he was born in Moscow, where his professors were Arensky and Taneyev. He studied with Woldemar Bargiel in Berlin at the Hochschule für Musik. These influences developed him into a hothouse for late-Romantic lyricism and, on this showing, a skilled purveyor of channelled sentimentality.

The sound here is right upfront to the listener to the point of invading the listener’s space. The musicians play right to your heart.

Of the two tightly-timed viola sonatas, the D major, Op. 15 work is from the turn of the 19^th and twentieth centuries. It overflows with torrential Brahmsian high romance, rather in the style of the Brahms Double Concerto. There’s no question of a temperate or distanced approach here and the musicians are at one with that mind-set; they constantly ‘push’ the mood and the tempo to intensify rather than in impatience with it. Listen to them in the finale. The Second Viola Sonata Op. 82a is from 1924. Its Moderato assai is a shade cooler but soulful and does not disappoint. The little Romanze from 1898 is cut from sentimental material and as a character essay and would also play well for cello.

The Silhouettes and Miniatures are for the same forces (violin, viola and piano). The ‘Prelude’ of the Silhouettes (largely vapid) is purposeful but plodding. The ‘Chant d’amour’ seethes rather well. Then come three Intermezzi which make play with dance forms. The second of these is in a moonlit mood while the third adheres to a typical Russian dance pattern. The Trio-Miniaturen is in four sentimental movements. They entertain rather than transfix. On this disc it is the viola sonatas, with their robust and memorable themes and treatment, that will have the listener sitting bolt-upright.

Incidentally Igor Pikayzen (violin) is the grandson of Viktor Pikayzen the Ukrainian who studied under David Oistrakh. Igor’s Glazunov concerto will appear on Sony next year.

Toccata have already issued a disc of Juon’s music for piano solo and list it as Volume 1.

Rob Barnett