Strässer Violin Sonata Op.32

[Alan Howe]

...forthcoming frpm MDG:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/ewald-straesser-sonate-fuer-violine-klavier-op-32/hnum/10764679

[eschiss1]

Intriguing couplings too, though I say that as someone who's enjoyed his music for some time

[Alan Howe]

The idiom of the Violin Sonata (c.1914, fp.1917) is, I suppose, somewhere between late Brahms and Reger. It's a big piece (three movements of roughly equal length lasting 30+mins.) requiring supreme virtuousity from both players. It's very well done indeed here on the new MDG recording.

One thing I didn't realise: although Straesser left behind 206 compositions when he died in 1933, the greater part of his sheet music and performing material was destroyed in the war. Let's hope more recordings will emerge in time.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, thankfully, two of his six symphonies and the piano concerto have survived. There is some chamber music in Fleisher - https://catalog.freelibrary.org/Search/Results?lookfor=Ewald+Straesser&submit=&searchme=catalog&searchType=simple - including 3 string quartets, which might be interesting to hear, though I see all 5 of his String quartets (together with some other works, including Symphonies 1 & 2) are at IMSLP [reminder to self: it helps to look there first! Hmph!]. He also wrote a violin concerto and a cello concerto, but I do not know if these are extant. I must say, I like what I have heard of his music.

[eschiss1]

Autograph material of one other symphony is listed at RISM, too, but I have no idea if it's complete. I hadn't considered that the later symphonies and some other works might otherwise be lost rather than just unpublished. Unfortunate.