Customer Reviews

Delius: The Four Violin Sonatas

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The Delius Violin Sonatas had been notably underrecorded until just a couple of years ago. Since then several versions have appeared but this one by Tasmin Little gets to the heart of the music like none of the others and makes the very most of their delights.

A wonderful disk of little-known - some would say undeservedly neglected - pieces for those who love Delius, English pastoral music or French / English chamber music. Although there is a late summer feeling to them, this is not relaxing music: beneath the peaceful exterior these sonatas are brimming with nostalgia, passion and yearning. Being more intimate, they are also more raw than Delius' orchestral music, yet just as exuberant. Rich, rapturous, resplendent music, played with conviction as if the musicians had written it themselves. This is a CD that will repay careful listening. The ear soon adjusts to the wide dynamic range and large acoustic. One of my most-played CDs - highly recommended.

I first encountered the music of Delius in a college freshman music appreciation class where the professor played excerpts from Hassan. I was no stranger to serious music, having begun playing the violin when I was five years old, but I was stunned by the tonalities and the emotional thrust of the Delius music and began a lifelong quest for recordings. Unfortunately, his better works were hard to find; the pieces most commonly recorded were the relatively empty Brigg Fair and On Hearing the First Cuckoo of Spring--gentle easy listening, but not much to grasp on to. Paris was interesting, but I rejoiced with every hearing of Sea Drift, especially the wonderful recording by Sir Thomas Beecham with Bruce Boyce, baritone, and the BBC choir.

Now, after many years, Delius' deeper music seems finally to be gaining the regard among performing musicians that it so richly deserves. This recording of the four violin sonatas by Tasmin Little and Piers Lane is a wonderful example. Tasmin's work with the Delius materials over the past decade and more could be a major factor in the Delius renaissance.

These four sonatas span the life work of Delius--the first one in his youth and never published until after his death, rejected by Delius himself as he matured, and the last one in his old age, blind and in a wheelchair dictating to a secretary.

The first Sonata on this CD, the "B" Op. Post., is essentially standard late 19th Century French Romantic with some interesting inventions here and there and in the second movement a strong hint of the Delius to come. Nice, but nothing special, useful to understand Delius' development over the subsequent decades. (Actually, my wife likes this one the best. She plays Debussy on the piano.) With Sonata No. 1, the second on this album, we are thrust immediately into the complex depths of Delius' musical genius with its improbable chord progressions and melodic leaps with frequent resort to whole tone, chromatic and octatonic scales. Sonata No. 2 pulls back slightly in sections toward more conventional ground. Sonata No. 3 opens with a surprising simplicity then grows into more typical complex Delius forms.

This is not easy-listening music. It requires strenuous attention to receive its benefits. But the rewards are immense.

Tasmin Little and Piers Lane execute their assignment with impressive sensitivity and understanding. The music is for the most part not technically demanding (though one has to wonder what is the purpose of writing in five sharps, then adding copious accidental sharps on top of those), but what it requires in sensitive musicianship far outweighs the technical demands. It would seem that Tasmin was born to this music. Every nuance rings with perfection.

What a wonderful disc to play while working. The recording is very clean with great presence. Her performance is wonderful, with an interpretation that is classic and precise.

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This is a very nice issue of rarely heard material.

Born and educated in England, Delius is usually considered a British composer; yet, he studied music in Germany, and spent most of his life in France.

His American visits notwithstanding, Delius' ethos is definitely in the French vein of Neo-Impressionnisme à la Fauré et Debussy.

The genre of the Violin Sonata was virtually coöpted by the French into a national form of cultural expression, and here Delius was no exception: the four works here were written in France between 1892-1930; moreover, they were composed under the spectre of the "French disease" [i.e., syphilis].

The performing artists and recorded sound are excellent.

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I'm a big fan of Delius, more so his orchestral works than chamber or concertos. The Violin Sonatas can be difficult to listen to due to the odd grasp that Delius had on harmony - here it doesn't make such smooth transitions as it does in the shifting sounds of an orchestra. But there is no doubt the music is beautifully played, as all other reviewers have noted (the Andante from posth. sonata is fascinating) but be warned that this music is not for everyone, and may take some time to get used to; I always find myself wanting to like all of the disc, but I can't, and maybe won't for a long time. Still, worth a spin every now and then. :)