JAVS Summer 2018

Recording Reviews

Recording Reviews By Carlos María Solare and Alex Trygstad

Knox’s reading is almost uncannily exact in its realization of the score’s rhythmic complexities, Sheppard is much freer, sometimes disconcertingly so if one is following the score. Of course, he has lived with the piece much longer than Knox had when he set it down for the short-lived label of Henze’s own festival in Montepulciano, Italy, and his playing has the authority that only comes with such a long acquaintance. As a whole, this vividly recorded CD o ers a welcome overview of Henze’s writing for strings throughout most of his creative life, from the classicistic Violin Sonata from 1946, when he was a student of Wolfgang Fortner, to a couple of short unaccompanied pieces written as memorials for deceased friends towards the end of the century. In between come the monumental unaccompanied Sonata from 1977, inspired by characters from the Orpheus myth, and a tuneful Sonatina from 1979 based on music originally written for the children opera “Pollicino” (Tom umb). Sheppard and Roderick Chadwick have the measure of the music throughout, and the whole project has obviously been a labor of love.

Written in 1978/79 for the young Garth Knox, Hans Werner Henze’s Viola Sonata can’t really be said to have entered the active repertoire. I don’t recall hearing more than a very few performances over the past four decades, and to the best of my knowledge this is only its second recording (the rst one, made in 1982 by Knox and Jan Latham-Koenig, was only published on an almost impossible-to- nd LP). All the more welcome is the present CD, made by someone who, like Knox, belonged from a relatively young age to the circle of musicians that worked closely with the composer. Playing a 15 ¼ inch instrument intriguingly cut down from a viola da gamba, Peter Sheppard Skærved evinces a subtle ear for colors, often employing unscripted harmonics and “una corda” playing to ne e ect. While Hans Werner Henze: Violin and ViolaWorks Violin Sonatina (1979), Solo Violin Sonata (1977), Violin Sonata (1946), Für Manfred (1989), Peter Doll zum Abschied (1999), Viola Sonata (1979). Peter Sheppard Skærved, violin/viola; Roderick Chadwick, piano. Naxos 8.573886

Reviewed by Carlos María Solare

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 34, 2018 Online Issue

43