Conceived as a treasure-trove of lesser-known French and Belgian repertoire, the works on this album span a forty-year period, from 1892 to 1932. A number of unifying threads run through the programme, perhaps the most significant of which is the influence of a composer whose music is not heard here at all: César Franck. Franck taught and championed Guillaume Lekeu and Mel Bonis; and Bonis in turn taught Charlotte Sohy, whose principal composition teacher was Vincent d'Indy, one of Franck's most devoted acolytes. The artists decided against including Franck's Violin Sonata in favour of the work by his fellow Belgian Lekeu, much more rarely recorded, and hardly ever heard in the concert hall. A number of shorter works surround this sonata to form a uniquely rewarding programme, starting with Charlotte Sohy's Thème varié. Three works by Mel Bonis complement the duo's recording of her Violin Sonata on their previous album (CHAN20275), whilst the two Élégies by Saint-Saëns have also been unfairly neglected. Fascinatingly, the second Élégie and Messiaen's Thème et variations are separated by just a dozen years, although they inhabit sound-worlds seemingly decades apart. Elsa Barraine was Messiaen's contemporary and lifelong friend. Her haunting Nocturne seemed to provide a fitting conclusion to this programme.

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Sohy: Theme varie, Op. 15
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Bonis: Andante religioso, Op. 78
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Bonis: Allegretto non troppo, Op. 84
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Lekeu: Sonate. I. Tres modere
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Lekeu: Sonate. II. Tres lent
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Lekeu: Sonate. III. Tres anime
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Saint-Saens: Elegie, Op. 143
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Saint-Saens: Elegie, Op. 160
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Bonis: Largo, Op. 83
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Theme -
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Premiere Variation -
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Deuxieme Variation -
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Troisieme Variation -
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Quatrieme Variation -
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Messiaen: Theme et variations. Cinquieme Variation
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Barraine: Nocturne

Europadisc Review

Violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster have built their partnership around programmes that feel curated rather than merely assembled, and Thème varié may be their most persuasive act of musical cartography yet. Its territory is French and Belgian music written between 1892 and 1932, and its invisible presiding figure is César Franck, whose influence passes through Guillaume Lekeu, Mel Bonis and Charlotte Sohy without requiring the inevitable inclusion of his own Sonata. The result is not an anthology of rediscoveries so much as a beautifully argued sequence, one in which kinship is revealed through colour, rhetoric and the long memory of the cyclic tradition.

Sohy’s titular Thème varié, op15 (1921), makes an arresting opening. Urioste gives the sombre theme a dark yet richly sonorous, centred tone, while Poster resists turning the piano’s harmonies into generalised late-Romantic upholstery. As the variations gather urgency, the players retain a firm sense of architectural direction: climaxes arrive as consequences, not effects. That same refusal of overstatement benefits the first two Bonis miniatures. The Andante religioso (1910) glows without becoming devotional kitsch, and the Allegretto non troppo (1904/10) moves with an elegant, conversational lift. Poster’s playing is especially telling here, attentive to inner voices yet never fussy, while Urioste phrases with an instinctive singer-like awareness of where a line must lean and where it should simply float.

The centrepiece of the disc is Lekeu’s 1892 G major Sonata, a work whose emotional temperature can sometimes encourage performers to confuse intensity with saturation. Urioste and Poster do not underplay its fervour, but they pace it patiently. The opening movement, marked Très modéré, unfolds in broad paragraphs. At times quietly radiant, its surges of feeling are supported by a strong underlying pulse. Urioste’s sound has warmth and grain, though her most memorable contribution is the flexibility with which she shades repeated material; Poster, meanwhile, makes the piano’s dense textures speak with unusual transparency. In the Très lent second movement, the duo find stillness without inertia, and the finale’s agitation is controlled by an acute sense of return and transformation. The performance ultimately suggests that Lekeu’s precocity lay not merely in his harmonic language but in his command of emotional recurrence.

Two Élégies by Saint-Saëns follow, and their placement is shrewd. After Lekeu’s expansiveness, they seem almost Classical in outline, yet Urioste discovers a discreet theatricality in their restraint. The D major Élégie, op.143 (1915), is shaped with noble simplicity, while the F major, op.160 (1920), carries a more private, unsettled grief. Bonis’s Largo, op.83 (1910), then acts as a hinge: brief, grave and harmonically searching, it prepares the ear for Messiaen without pretending that the stylistic distance between them is small.

Messiaen’s Thème et variations (1932) is the programme’s great change of light, a wedding gift for his bride, Claire (Louise) Delbos. Poster clarifies each harmonic shift without hardening the piano tone, and Urioste allows the music’s ecstasy to grow from concentration rather than display. The early variations are sharply characterised, but the cumulative design is paramount. By the final Très modéré, the violin line seems less accompanied than illuminated, its tone intense and glassy, its rapture sustained by control of bow speed and vibrato. It is a performance that understands Messiaen’s sensuality as inseparable from discipline.

The tiny Nocturne of 1928 by Elsa Barraine (a classmate and lifelong friend of Messiaen), presented here as a first recording, is an inspired coda. Its brevity leaves a disproportionate afterimage: shadowy, suspended and emotionally unresolved. Urioste and Poster do not inflate it into a manifesto; they let its strangeness remain intact.

Recorded at Potton Hall in Suffolk, the familiar Chandos spaciousness is used here less to confer grandeur than to preserve the physical character of the partnership. The violin is present but not spotlit, the piano full-bodied without becoming orchestral, and the bloom around sustained notes helps bind the programme’s contrasting idioms. Just as important is the handling of silence. Cadences are given time to settle, though never so much that the recital loses continuity.

The ordering, too, has the logic of a thoughtfully planned concert: Sohy establishes the principle of variation; Bonis offers intimate perspectives; Lekeu expands the emotional horizon, Saint-Saëns and Bonis gather the fragments after the storm, Messiaen turns variation into revelation, and Barraine closes the door quietly. Even the generous 72-minute span feels concentrated, because each miniature has a structural function rather than serving as decorative relief within the larger design. Generous, detailed booklet notes by Nigel Simeone and the performers themselves enhance further enhance the album’s attractiveness.

One of the chief reasons why Thème varié succeeds is because advocacy never overwhelms artistry. These musicians clearly believe in the repertoire, but belief is expressed through proportion, tonal imagination and the give-and-take of genuine duo playing. The album’s neglected names are not displayed as worthy exhibits; they are allowed to converse, argue and echo one another across four decades. Chandos’s programme thus feels at once exploratory and inevitable: a recital whose discoveries deepen with every return.

Reviews

Lekeu’s Sonata is a real gem and has received a number of fine recordings... Urioste and Poster present a highly persuasive account, slightly more relaxed, allowing the long violin lines to breathe. ... Messiaen’s Thème et variations is wiry and angular, the playing offering the necessary bite. Mark Pullinger

Gramophone August 2026

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Theme varie: Works for Violin and Piano

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