The duo of old friends, James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong, has established itself as one of the most exciting of our times. Their albums of violin sonatas by Franck and Strauss, and Debussy, Elgar and Respighi have been praised by critics worldwide. For this new album they turn to Beethoven and two A major sonatas with very different moods. The Ninth, ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, is a huge work, heroic and turbulent in character – a kind of concerto for violin and piano. It is middle-period Beethoven at its most dramatic. By contrast, the Sixth Sonata is a serene, introspective work of great beauty which has tended to be overlooked by its more outward-looking siblings. The intimacy of this Sonata – especially the slow movement - is all the more surprising as the original finale was removed by the composer, to become the finale of the ‘Kreutzer’. Beethoven wrote the gentle variations to conclude the Sixth Sonata.