Search - Joseph Guy Ropartz, Beatrice Rauchs :: Joseph-Guy Ropartz: The three sonatas for violin & piano

Musique of the Celtic Fringe...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 08/20/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Along with Jean Cras Jean Cras: Quintette; Quatuor à cordes , Melodies , Cras: L'uvre complète pour violon et piano , Maritime: Jean-Pierre Ferey plays Cras , and Paul Le Flem Quintet Piano & Strings/Sonata Violin & Piano , Breton composer J.-G. Ropartz is chief representative of the small cluster of French-Celtic artists from Bretagne [Brittany] of the early-20th Century.



The Sonatas presented here on a nice small Belgian label offer curious flavours, colours, and textures. Written decades apart--(1907, 1917, and 1927, respectively)--they form a telescopic set of Ropartz' art. The 1st and 2nd Sonatas are particularly redolent with distinctive Breton modalities and maritime influences.



The genre of the Violin Sonata itself is an important form (cf. Bach Bach: Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord, BWV 1014-1019; Sonatas for Viola da Gamba & Harpsichord, BWV 1027-1029 , Mozart Mozart: The Violin Sonatas , Beethoven Beethoven: Complete Violin Sonatas ) which was pursued by serious French artists in the later-19th Century and early-20th Centuries e.g., Franck César Franck: Sonate pour violon & piano; Quatuor à cordes or Bréville Joseph Canteloube, Pierre de Bréville: Music for Violin and Piano . Ropartz' Sonatas offer us yet more fine examples of this major art-form.



Reasonably priced, as well.

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