Röntgen Works for violin and piano vol.1

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming from cpo:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/cpo/detail/-/art/julius-roentgen-werke-fuer-violine-klavier-vol-1/hnum/1588291

[mjkFendrich]

This CD almost duplicates the contents of the Toccata CD from July 2014!

[jonfrohnen]

It's only ok to record standard repertoire over and over and over and over!

[Alan Howe]

In any case, my suspicion is that this will trump the Toccata recording. The cpo soloist, Christoph Schickedanz, is a wonderful player.

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Ah, but irrespective of whatever merits it may turn out to have, it certainly will not trump the Toccata disc for the quality of the notes in the CD booklet.

[Alan Howe]

That's a major Toccata selling-point, admittedly - but I'll be buying the cpo release too because Schickedanz is such a magnificent violinist.

[Alan Howe]

..and it turns out rather as I had expected. Christoph Schickedanz is wonderful - his tone is beautiful, his intonation spot-on and his handling of Röntgen's soaring lines in, for example, the Op.40 Violin Sonata, marvellously secure and lustrous. Although Atsuko Sahara (on Toccata) is a fine player, I don't find her tone or vibrato as attractive as Schickedanz's. A case, I'm afraid, of the excellent being the enemy of the good. 

[Alan Howe]

...mind you, I do harbour a considerable soft spot for the first recording of the Op.40 Sonata (made by Elisabeth Small with Alan Mandel on Premier Recordings) - mainly because it takes the piece rather more slowly. This gives the Sonata a more melancholy feel and the soaring lines absolutely take wing. However, Schickedanz is undoubtedly a better violinist and the recording is better focused.

Oh, how often one's critical faculties are scrambled by the memory of the first recording one heard..,