Ornstein: Complete Violin Sonatas

Parrino, Francesco;
Parrino, Stefano;
Renier, Maud

95079

A matter of months separate the first two of violin sonatas by Leo Ornstein (1893-2002) – the spring of 1915 in which the world was tearing itself apart in conflict – but, as if to mirror their times, the musical styles they explore are poles apart. The First Sonata is a long, four-movement work in a late-Romantic vein. Only the descending clusters in the piano part of the second movement give notice of the fiercely Modernist rhetoric of the Second Sonata, in which the 20-something tyro composer himself admitted that he brought music ‘to the very edge... I simply drew back and said, ‘beyond that lies complete chaos’. In fact the four movements – much briefer than the First, but still traditionally disposed, with an Andante espressivo second movement – inhabit the realm of Expressionist angst shared by Arnold Schoenberg’s music of the period, including the Five Orchestral Pieces and Erwartung.

Works:
• Ornstein: Hebraic Fantasy for violin and piano
• Ornstein: Three pieces for flute and piano
• Ornstein: Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 26
• Ornstein: Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 31
• Ornstein: Violin Sonata, Op. Posth.

CD

Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

5028421950792