Elena Urioste and Tom Poster return for their second recital on Chandos, focussing on French repertoire.

‘The three sonatas on this album were all published during the decade 1916–26, a musical period to which we often find ourselves drawn, when the world – and the artistic landscape – was changing beyond recognition. Fauré lamented to his wife that his Second Sonata, composed under the shadow of the First World War, had never achieved anything like the popularity of his First; having fallen under the Second Sonata’s spell, we wanted to help to right this continuing imbalance. Mel Bonis, whose life story reads like the plot of a Hollywood film, wrote more than 300 pieces, and all those we have explored so far have been wonderful (she is our hot tip for the next composer due a major renaissance). Her only Violin Sonata is a rhapsodic work with a Greek folk melody at its heart, which we were enraptured by the moment we encountered it. Reynaldo Hahn is generally better known to singers than to instrumentalists, though his chamber music is as exquisite as his songs. His Violin Sonata was the last work on this album to be composed, but where Fauré in his Sonata looks forward to modernist developments, Hahn (with the exception of his short middle movement, inspired by a fast car ride!) looks back nostalgically to a gentler time. The earliest of the works here, and possibly the most often heard these days, is the Nocturne by Lili Boulanger, an exquisite miniature from a composer whose life ended far too soon.’ – Elena Urioste & Tom Poster

Reviews

A sepia postcard framing the artists, a red rose lying alongside it, illustrates the booklet of ‘Le temps retrouvé’, a valentine from the violinist Elena Urioste and her pianist husband Tom Poster to four French composers of music written between 1914 and 1926, including a Violin Sonata by Mel Bonis... The codicil is a little Nocturne by Lili Boulanger, played with all the expressive detail noted but never lingered over for effect. At the risk of showering further encomiums on these players, let me just say that it wouldn’t surprise me to find this disc up for Award nominations later in the season. Adrian Edwards

Gramophone February 2024