BRAHMS: Violin Sonata Nos. 1 & 2; Violin Sonata No. 3 – Albert Spalding, violin/Erno von Dohnanyi, p. – Pristine Audio

by | Jun 26, 2011 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

BRAHMS: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G Major, Op. 78; Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100; Violin Sonata No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 108 – Albert Spalding, violin/Erno von Dohnanyi, piano – Pristine Audio PACM 078, 67:21 [avail. in various formats at www.pristineclassical.com] *****:
Mark Obert-Thorn turns his considerable prowess as a producer and restoration engineer upon a rare LP from the defunct Remington label, the brainchild of Laszlo Halasz and Don Gabor which existed 1950-1957.  The disc(s)–in fact the last sonata of Brahms had been coupled with some Hungarian Dances–are the complete Brahms violin sonatas played by America’s own virtuoso Albert Spalding (1888-1953) and Hungarian composer-pianist Erno von Dohnanyi (1877-1960). While the Pristine issue lists the recording dates as 1951, the original liner notes written by Edward Tatnall Canby, suggest that these performances with Spalding were recorded in the fall of 1949 when Dohnanyi came to New York when visiting the United States – before he took up the post of professor at the Florida School of Music. [However, Mark Obert-Thorn feels the 1951 date is correct…Ed.] Whatever the discrepancy, we know that pianist Edward Kilenyi, a Dohnanyi protégé, served as Music Director for Remington until 1953, when he assumed a post at Florida State University.
Remington Records suffered from their cheap vinylite surfaces, and their records were noisy and prone to pitch fluctuations. Obert-Thorn restores the G Major Sonata to a “pristine” brilliance, capturing the fluent intimacy that emanates between the two collaborators. Spalding’s is a throaty vibrant tone, quite expressive in the high registers, and he does over-emote his vibrato.  The rather dry approach suggests the influence of his early training in France. Dohnanyi’s technique certainly is not what it had been in his heyday, but his expressive powers and sense of drama remain undiminished. They drive the first movement of the G Major rather hard, less for sentiment than for its classical architecture of bittersweet affects nostalgically recalled. The lines in the latter pages become quite long and elastic, intimate and heroic at once. The E-flat Major Adagio moves at a studied tempo, rife with powerful, often dark emotion, especially considering that it was conceived as a testimonial to his late godson, Felix Schumann, son of the composer Robert. The rainy-day motif adopted from the “Regenlied” song becomes heavy and funereal, Spalding’s tone thick and raspy in the manner of a viola in high register. The final Rondo in G–with its cyclic allusions to the second movement–conveys a poignant lyricism, the dotted rhythms of the “rain” motif now become even more passionately wistful.
The A Major “Thun” Sonata (1886) remains the most relaxed of the set, composed as it was on Swiss holiday. Though the tempo remains rather staid and stately in the opening Allegro amabile, the keyboard work from Dohnanyi proves gracious and lovely, a close rival to the spectacular rendition of the part by Mieczyslaw Horszowski in his recording on Mercury with Joseph Szigeti. If shyness and introspection mark the general tenor of the movement, its few piquant bursts of emotion come as minute flames in the midst of a distant sunset. Spalding plays the bucolic Andante tranquillo with admirable restraint, though he does not ream in aloof in the succeeding Vivace section, where a flirtatious dalliance resides. The last movement, Allegro grazioso, permits us to savor Spalding’s sustained legato. Soulfully played, the music has its middle section burst of passion made more potent by the contrast the two artists create in the placid outer figurations of this most self-assured rondo.
The 1887 D Minor Sonata has a wonderful collaboration here in Spalding and Dohnanyi. The shifting contours–between D Minor and F Major–resonate with fiery passion on virtually every page, the syncopes adding to the jarring nervous quality of the emotions. Note Spalding’s old-world hesitation on the cadence endings of the secondary theme. Spalding’s bariolage technique over the sustained A pedal proves effective, the harmonic-rhythm slowed to a dramatic crawl. Dohnanyi applies the directions to subito forte with pungency but no shatter in the recorded sound. The recapitulation and fading chords into D Major flow with plastic aplomb and complete musical serenity of style. Spalding reveals the nice legato charms of the Adagio, a cavatina conceived in mostly Lydian harmonies on G and C. Spalding’s rising passages achieve an intense culmination, his trills leading us back to a stately and dignified rendition of the theme that serves as a coda. Dohnanyi reigns in the F-sharp Minor scherzino, at least until Spalding’s violin develops an impassioned response to the skittish syncopations that have preceded it. The stops are pulled out for the fiery Presto agitato, a drama of volatile passion in a form similar to a Northern tarantella. The four-beat, four measure motif becomes obsessive, even manic, building with inexorable fury, tumbling, and renewing itself. The dynamic contrasts, the emotional upheavals, each flow with singular character and fierce resolve.
As a testament from two aging musicians who retrieve a lost world of Romantic ethos, the disc lives as an invaluable treasure, much to our inestimable delight.
— Gary Lemco

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