Yehudi Menuhin - Brahms, Schumann: Violin Sonatas (2003) CD-Rip

Three sonatas recorded by the young Yehudi Menuhin in happy times - particularly happy, as his younger sister Hephzibah is his pianist in all three. I'm not sure that he ever recorded the two beautiful Brahms sonatas again ; certainly not the Schumann, the quite unfamiliar second sonata. Its unfamiliarity is unmerited - Menuhin was bowled over by it when he came across it, and the performance is white hot, very committed though also fully under control. The G Major Brahms Sonata was recorded in Australia, a land that Menuhin loved and admired, and indeed his first wife, Nola, was Australian ; her brother, Lindsay, married Hephzibah, so there were close and personal associations with the country, and though both those marriages eventually failed, they were very happy at the outset. It would be easy to attribute the warmth and geniality of the performance of that sonata to the circumstances the two performers found themselves in ; whatever the reason, it is a lovely performance ... as is that of the Third Brahms Sonata, recorded four years earlier in Paris. In each work we have a god-like young violinist at the height of his powers playing with uncomplicated eloquence, and with him a loved sister who is herself a first-rate musician and is completely at one with her partner. As the recorded sound and the transfers are excellent in each case, there is no reason to award anything less than five stars.