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Hindemith - Complete Viola Music Vol.2: Solo Sonatas

£13.60

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Label: Hyperion

Cat No: CDA67769

Barcode: 0034571177694

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Instrumental

Release Date: 1st February 2010

Works

Hindemith, Paul

Sonata for solo viola (1937)
Sonata for solo viola, op.11 no.5
Sonata for solo viola, op.25 no.1
Sonata for solo viola, op.31 no.4

Artists

Lawrence Power (viola)

Works

Hindemith, Paul

Sonata for solo viola (1937)
Sonata for solo viola, op.11 no.5
Sonata for solo viola, op.25 no.1
Sonata for solo viola, op.31 no.4

Artists

Lawrence Power (viola)

About

Lawrence Power, Britain’s acknowledged greatest living viola player, continues his fascinating and acclaimed series of Hindemith’s complete viola music.

This second disc features Hindemith’s solo viola sonatas. These works were all written for Hindemith himself to perform, and are thus are of special significance - as near to a personal testament, an intimate soliloquy, as exists in his multifarious and genre-spanning output.

The shadow of Bach lies over any composer writing a solo string sonata, and this is clear in the Passacaglia of the Op.11 No.5 Sonata, where Hindemith’s ultimate model is unmistakably the famous D minor Chaconne from Bach’s second violin partita, but viewed through a post-Brahmsian sense of sonority and architecture that produces a truly contemporary result. This ardent (and arduous) movement, a most impressive compositional feat, is the first example of a form which was to be one of Hindemith’s trademarks throughout his career, and it makes the Sonata something of a personal manifesto of artistic ambition. In later sonatas the severity of Hindemith’s mature style becomes evident - but harnessed, here, to the extraordinary virtuosity of the composer-performer, it gives rise to the most exhilarating and eloquent music.

Praise for Volume 1:
‘Not since the days of William Primrose have I heard Hindemith’s viola music played with such warmth and conviction’ - Gramophone

‘Some of Hindemith’s most haunting tunes went into his viola music … this is the first volume of a projected and very welcome series devoted to the viola works of a composer who played the instrument himself and wrote prolifically for it … [Sonata No 4] gives Power a chance to show off the gorgeously smooth tone of his 400-year-old instrument … Power’s acute sense of phrasing makes for an eloquent and elegiac ‘Meditation’’ - BBC Music Magazine

‘All the performances are superb, with Lawrence Power lavishing all the richness of his velvety tone and generous phrasing on some of the most striking melodic ideas that Hindemith ever produced’ - The Guardian