John Corigliano: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 (1963), American Violin Sonatas by David Diamond: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (1981), Peter Mennin: Sonata Concertante for Violin and Piano (1956), Benjamin Lees: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (1973). Fredell Lack, Albert Hirsch, Barry Snyder (in Mennin, Lees?). Bay Cities BCD 1018 (1990) barcode 094659101829
Lees and Mennin the substantial works here, belonging to the fine specimens in the genre written in the 2nd half of the 20th Century
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 15 December 2007
Bay Cities was a short-lived label – established in 1989, it folded in 1993 – devoted in part to reissues of old material from the CRI, Everest or Desto labels from the 1960s or earlier, mainly of orchestral works by Neo-Romantic Americans such as Robert Ward, David Diamond, Randall Thompson, Howard Hanson and Norman Dello Joio or neo-classicists such as Roy Harris, and partly to the release of soundtracks from film scores. But they also made a number of original recordings of chamber music, as this one, with Violin Sonatas of Corigliano, Diamond, Lees and Mennin. Bay Cities is unclear as to which pianist, Albert Hirsch or Barry Snyder, accompanies in which piece.
In 1963 Corigliano was 25 years-old, which is not all that young, and as much as it is understandable that a composer that age should still be under influence, in those years there might have been better models to choose than Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, Prokofiev’s Violin Sonatas, or Poulenc and Milhaud in the bouncy finale. The Sonata is not offensive, it is just unsubstantial and derivative of models that were already passé at the time of the composition. The best of the Sonata is its third movement, “Lento, quasi recitative”, which attains at times a Coplandesque grandeur (and I am referring here to the “serious” Copland of he Piano Sonata or Variations) and has a superb cadenza evocative of Bach revisited by Bartok. Fredell Lack doesn’t help either, with a tone so screechy and intonation so insecure at times as to make it a not entirely pleasant listening experience.
David Diamond’s second Sonata from 1981 has moments of brooding Romantic lyricism, others of more agitated muscularity, all layed out with a French-like clarity, and as such it is, like Corigliano’s, somewhat enjoyable, but all those stylistic features come some 40 to 60 years too late for the Sonata to be viewed as having anything interesting to say. It could have been written by one of the lesser French composers from the first fifty years of the 20th Century, say, Vierne, Schmitt, Durey, D’Indy, Pierné, Ropartz.
But the Sonatas of Lees and Mennin make it worthwhile to put up with Corigliano, Diamond and Lack. These are powerful, sombre and forbidding works, sharing more than a few common stylistic features. In Peter Mennin’s Sonata Concertante from 1956 I hear echoes of Bloch’s own First Violin & Piano Sonata (and for those who don’t know this magnificent work, see for instance on Amazon.com pending repost here my review of Adda 581044, no barcode, link will open new tab to my review), the sweep and the restless agitation, the anguished questioning of the Adagio, but without the Swiss/American composer’s sensuousness. Benjamin Lees’ 2nd Sonata from 1973 starts with a forbidding cadenza of bartokian anger and goes on in agitated, anguished figurations. Again Bloch’s as well as Bartok’s respective First Sonata come to mind (or the Hungarian composer’s Solo Violin Sonata), but without the sensuousness and the distinctive melodic turns. Memories of Bartok again are conjured, and strikingly so, in the threatening middle Adagio and the vigorous finale. The work remains tonal, but it is thorny. Both works are no easy listening, but they are highly rewarding if you make the effort, and among the fine specimens in the genre written in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.