Russian violinist Dmitry Smirnov’s début recording on FHR features works by master baroque composer J.S. Bach, a leading figure of 20th-century music Béla Bartók, and a wonderful newly discovered work by influential mid-20th-century Swiss violinist Hansheinz Schneeberger who died in 2019.

The Schneeberger Sonata, written two years before Bartók’s Sonata, is a violin showpiece, displaying much imagination in its idiomatic and virtousic violin writing – this is the first recording of the work.

There are many connections that link these three works together – the Bartók and Schneeberger sonatas show influences of Bach. Also, Bartók’s First Violin Concerto was premièred by Schneeberger. On this album Smirnov plays both a modern and baroque violin.