Pyramids

A prizewinning soloist and concertmaster of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and National Orchestra of Spain, the Romanian violinist Vlad Stanculeasa joins the renowned Australian pianist James Maddox for a mouthwatering selection of twentieth-century violin sonatas that traverse Europe, from Romania to Sweden via France.

George Enescu’s 1926 Violin Sonata No 3 fuses the exotic folk music of Romania with the free-flowing rhapsody and kaleidoscopic colors of early twentieth-century Vienna and Paris. This work full of distinctive Romanian inflections is one of the unsung gems of the violin sonata repertory, and is presented on this new recording just as Europe’s major orchestras and opera houses are reappraising Enescu’s extraordinary sound-world and legacy.

Carl Nielsen’s Violin Sonata No 2 gives voice to the Danish composer’s compelling harboring of musical energy, flux and confrontation, but with a long-breathed lyricism that is often absent from the composer’s best known symphonic works. Completing the programme is Olivier Messiaen’s Fantasie and Thème et Variations – music which draws us closely into the French composer’s unique, searchingly lyrical sound world.

‘Both subtle and brilliant’, writes The Strad of Stanculeasa’s playing. Both he and Maddox dig deep into this rich music, drawing maximum colour and expression from their instruments while arguing the case for their chosen works as pivotal and fascinating creations from a uniquely productive time.