Sonatas & Suite
Steven Dann; James Parker
ATMA ACD2 2519
The accomplished musicians featured on this disc need little introduction to Toronto audiences familiar with their frequent appearances on the local chamber music scene. Their recital together on the ATMA label provides an intriguing opportunity to explore the repertoire of French viola works from the turn of the 20th century.
Pride of place in this collection goes to the central work in the program, the sonata by Charles Koechlin (1867–1950), a truly outstanding composition and a major contribution to the viola repertoire. Completed in the midst of the First World War, the work is dedicated to fellow composer and erstwhile violinist (and violist) Darius Milhaud who premiered the work in Paris in 1915. Koechlin’s crystalline harmonies, supple rhythms and melodic inventiveness are inimitable and it is a pleasure to see his music gradually attracting the attention it deserves. Throughout the four movements of the work the unusually wide-ranging piano writing is very much at the forefront of Koechlin’s thought, with the viola often receding into the background texture. Parker’s evocation of Koechlin’s kaleidoscopic quasi-orchestral textures is masterful and Dann’s artistry is movingly eloquent throughout.
The two flanking works receive their first recorded performances here. Pierre de Bréville (1861–1949) was a noted professor, music critic and the author of a biography of César Franck, a mentor whose influence permeates his finely crafted sonata which, though composed in the war ravaged days of 1944, still speaks the dainty language of the fin-de-siècle. The spirited opening and lively finale of the 1897 Suite in three parts by the celebrated organist Charles Tournemire (1870–1939) provide a rousing conclusion to this excellent and enterprising disc.
