Ariadne Daskalakis & Paolo Giacometti - Schubert: Music for Violin, Vol. 2 (2020) [Hi-Res]

The extant music for violin by Franz Schubert fits comfortably on two volumes, and Ariadne Daskalakis released the first volume of her survey in 2019, to critical acclaim. The Vol. 1 included works for violin and piano as well as three pieces with orchestral accompaniment, in performances described in "The Strad" as having ‘a litheness and shimmering delight that capture the music’s innate charm and dance-like vivacity with a beguiling sureness of touch’.

The second installment focuses on the chamber music with piano, and once again Daskalakis is joined by Paolo Giacometti, playing a fortepiano by Salvatore Lagrassa. The instrument, of the Viennese school, was built around 1815 and is thus almost exactly contemporary with the sonatas recorded here, the ones in D major and A minor dating from 1816 and the Sonata in A major from the following year. Schubert, who was around twenty years old at the time, had learned the violin from an early age, but the sonatas were probably intended for his older brother Ferdinand, who led the family string quartet in which Franz played the viola.

This album opens with a later work, however – the so-called Rondeau brilliant, from 1826. As the nickname indicates, this B minor Rondo is virtuosic, composed for Josef Slavík who before his early death was hailed as Paganini’s successor by the Viennese critics. In her liner notes, Ariadne Daskalakis describes the piece as ‘in turn dramatic, playful, gentle, seductive and wild’ and together with Paolo Giacometti she brings out each of these aspects.