Violin Unlimited - Solo Violin Sonatas by Sculhoff, Hindemith, Jarnach and Erdmann

Violin Unlimited

Erwin SCHULHOFF (1894-1942)

Sonata for solo violin (1927) [11:52]

Paul HINDEMITH (1895-1963)

Sonata for solo violin, Op.31 No.2 (1924) [12:02]

Philipp JARNACH (1892-1982)

Sonata for solo violin, Op.13 (1922) [13:51]

Eduard ERDMANN (1896-1958)

Sonata for solo violin (1920-21) [19:27]

Baiba Skride (violin)

rec. November 2020, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany

Review:

It was tricky being a locked-down violinist during Covid. You can play a twentieth-century solo programme – but without the lure of Ysaÿe – and still find someone had beaten you to it. In the case of Baiba Skride, her programme bears a certain similarity to Gateway into the Beyond, Lucas Brunnert’s time-travelling and somewhat obscure 2014 album on Aldilà which shares the Hindemith and Erdmann sonatas (review). But Skride has expanded the German geographical focus of that album to include the French-born, though German-resident, Philipp Jarnach and the Czech Erwin Schulhoff, whose own solo sonata is rapidly becoming something of a standard repertoire piece for the inquisitive violinist.

In fact, Skride starts with Schulhoff in the very resonant acoustic of the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin. Daniel Hope on Nimbus and Antonín Novák on Praga have approached this sonata on their own terms, too, but I like Skride’s way with it, notably the serious and darkly-voiced slow movement at its heart. She plays the Hindemith with considerable purity of expression, enjoying the droll pizzicato episodes of the third movement and the charming Mozart variations that form the finale.

Jarnach’s 1922 sonata makes for a marvellously balanced work. The opening movement, which Skride dispatches with fluidity and expressive freedom, is followed by the urgency of the Prestissimo which she subtly allows to slow before picking up the intensity of the earlier material. The finale has abrasive dialogues but clear lines – a tribute to her refinement. For many years Erdmann’s sonata had the reputation of being a doughty and unapproachable work. It was composed for the Flesch student, Alma Moodie, who never made a recording. It’s a highly abstract work, and freely tonal, but Skride plays it with the kind of appeal she’d bring to much more popular repertoire and so rides over any concerns about its unapproachability. In truth Brunnert dealt with those concerns too, but Skride has a way with its slow, uneasy elements and its quietly, wintry finale that are most impressive too.

All four works were composed between 1921 (the Erdmann) and 1927 (Schulhoff) and offer contrasting and complementary evidence of solo violin works in this period. Each has its own character and imperatives, well drawn on by Baiba Skride in this well-programmed disc.

Jonathan Woolf (Music Web)