Search - Dohnanyi, Janacek, Shaham :: Violin Sonata

Hagai Shaham and Arnon Erez have been enthusiastically acclaimed for their dazzling duo performances. For their latest disc, they turn to two composers who were seminal figures of Eastern European music during the early twentieth century. Dohnányi composed a number of significant pieces for the violin, including two violin concertos. One of his most important chamber works is the Violin Sonata, Op.21, composed in 1912. The work shows his individual development of stylistic traits
of Brahms and Liszt. Also recorded here is Dohnányi s most overtly folk-influenced work, Ruralia hungarica, and a movement from his first Orchestral Suite arranged as a thoroughly idiomatic piece for violin and piano by Jascha Heifetz. In the first days of World War I, Dohnányi s native Hungary was invaded by the Russian army. This portentous event provided the creative spark for Leos Janácek s Violin Sonata (his only surviving violin sonata; two very early ones he composed in Dresden and Vienna in 1880 are lost). Other works by Janácek in this recital include early pieces from his student years and an arrangement of the delicate mood study A blown-away Leaf from his celebrated piano work, On the Overgrown Path.