Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Having done more than anyone, over the last three decades, to put Nikos Skalkottas (1904-49) back on the musical map, BIS take a break from their excellent series of orchestral discs, giving us the major part of the music for his own instrument. Although it was only when studying in Berlin that the young composer decided to focus on composition, its impossible to describe his 1925 Solo Violin Sonata as the work of beginner: this is music of a technical and expressive clarity to die for! So in the Violin Sonatinas written in pairs in 1929 and 1935; the latter two are products of a mature musical outlook, with any stylistic debts absorbed into a strikingly personal vision. If the Third Sonatina is the best proportioned, the lengthy slow movement of No. 4 is a highpoint in Skalkottas's output--intense and deeply communicative. Georgios Demertzis's expressive and highly charged playing goes to the heart of this music, and he's imaginatively accompanied by Maria Asteriadou. They get maximum variety from the shorter pieces which round off the disc: scintillating miniatures made for encores. Absorbing music, superbly realised--do try it! Richard Whitehouse
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