James Ehnes has previously explored Béla Bartók’s concertos for\nviolin and for viola, to great acclaim. This disc is the second in\nhis equally successful survey of Bartók’s chamber music for the\nviolin. His accompanist, once more, is Andrew Armstrong, a pianist\npraised by critics for his passionate expression and dazzling\ntechnique.

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The folk-inspired Sonata for Solo Violin was the last work that\nBartók wrote for the instrument, not to mention the most\nchallenging. In a departure from his usual practice, this work was\nwritten not for a fellow Hungarian, but rather for an artist born\nin New York where Bartók was now living: Yehudi Menuhin. Suitably\nimpressed by a recital performance by Menuhin of his first Violin\nSonata as well as Bach’s Sonata in C, he had no hesitation in\naccepting the violinist’s commission for a sonata that, like\nBach’s, would be unaccompanied.

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Almost half a century earlier, Bartók had written his Sonata for\nViolin and Piano in E minor. It was included in a concert given by\ngraduating students of the Liszt Academy in June 1903, when a\ncritic, most likely not realising just how right he would prove,\nhailed Bartók as ‘a phenomenal young genius, whose name today is\nknown only to a few, but who is destined to play a great and\nbrilliant role in the history of Hungarian music’.

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Additionally on this disc we have three groups of Bartók’s\nRomanian and Hungarian folk dances, folksongs, and folk tunes,\narranged for violin variously by Zoltán Székely, Tivadar Országh,\nand Joseph Szigeti, often with direct involvement by the composer\nhimself who helped fine-tune the new arrangements. James Ehnes also\nhighlights the Romanian influences in Bartók’s Sonatina for piano,\ntranscribed for violin by André Gertler, a student of Bartók’s.

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