wowhd.co.uk

When a composer is as well-known as Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), it's extraordinary to think that there remain first recordings to be made of substantial parts of their catalogue. Yet this album presents the premiere modern recording of two highly appealing Romantic violin sonatas which fill out our understanding of Rheinberger's diverse output and deserve to stand alongside many more frequently played works in the genre. Even if Rheinberger is chiefly remembered for his organ and choral music, he wrote assiduously for the concert hall and especially chamber venues, in a vein that will remind listeners of Mendelssohn, Franck and especially Brahms. The First Sonata in E flat is distinguished by the idyllic character of it's central slow movement, and by the thrilling whirl of it's Tarantella finale. It is in the later E minor Sonata that we find the kind of expansive approach to melody and form which was to prove so influential on a generation of composers through Rheinberger's work as a teacher at the Munich Conservatoire, where his pupils included Engelbert Humperdinck, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and Wilhelm Furtwängler. The album is completed by three song transcriptions, with the song-line given to the violin. These are Vorüber and Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen from Rheinberger's Op.4 collection, and I'm Sturm Op.41. They are played by the violinist Thomas Schrott - Italian born to German-Austrian parents - who is currently a member of the superb Lucerne Festival Strings founded by Rudolf Baumgartner.