Unsung Composers

The Music => Recordings & Broadcasts => Topic started by: Alan Howe on Tuesday 15 October 2019, 22:20

Title: Juon Violin Sonatas 1-3
Post by: Alan Howe on Tuesday 15 October 2019, 22:20
...forthcoming from Naxos:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8690236--paul-juon-violin-sonatas-nos-1-3 (https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8690236--paul-juon-violin-sonatas-nos-1-3)
Title: Re: Juon Violin Sonatas 1-3
Post by: Christopher on Wednesday 16 October 2019, 14:28
The write-up says "Paul Juons musical education provided him with a direct link to the German Romantic style of Mendelssohn and Schumann, and he has even been called the Russian Brahms. These three violin sonatas represent an important artistic statement by this neglected master, also showing his artistic evolution. The First Sonata is reminiscent of Tchaikovsky in its melodic beauty, the Second Sonata enriched with Scandinavian flavour in its mercurial character and chromatic intensity. The masterful and dramatic Third Sonata evokes an epic imagined landscape full of natural and supernatural beings."

..didn't Brahms and Tchaikovsky famously loathe each other?  Certainly their music is extremely different!
Title: Re: Juon Violin Sonatas 1-3
Post by: Mark Thomas on Wednesday 16 October 2019, 20:04
Implausible though it sounds, Juon's early works certainly do come across as an uneasy amalgam of those two polar opposites. Can't say that I've ever really warmed to his music.
Title: Re: Juon Violin Sonatas 1-3
Post by: eschiss1 on Thursday 17 October 2019, 02:47
While there's already a recording of these sonatas and another of the 3rd alone, it's not a crowded field and I look forward to hearing this.