Violin Sonatas 4 Op. 24, 5 Op. 24 Spring, & 6 Op. 30 No.1
Lucy Russell Violin
Sezi Seskir Fortepiano
Acis APL29582
Full Price
The Review
Lucy Russell is more usually heard these days as the first violin of the Fitzwilliam Quartet so it’s good to hear her solo and in period instrument guise – she’s also Professor of baroque violin at the RCM. There is an awful lot right with this recording of early sonatas. Their essential domesticity comes through in the balance between the period instruments; nobody is trying to project to the back of a concert hall, just to somewhere the other side of the drawing room in a modest aristocratic mansion. Russell and Seskir are crisp with the music but do not bully it.
The fortepiano used (a copy of a Johann Schantz, who supplied Haydn and Beethoven) is precise but does not have the tinny timbre that can sometimes get in the way when listening to fortepiano accompanying a violin with gut strings. Equally those strings have a mellow cantabile that stops the violinist trying to compete too hard. In other words, Seskir and Russell respond to each other with proper regard to the strengths of each instrument.
Russel is quoted in the notes as saying that she “felt that the palette of colour [from an open gut D string] enabled her to bring out the contrasted vulnerability and robustness of Beethoven’s sound world,” and that is indeed what she achieves. Seskir is a sensitive accompanist but not so sensitive that she holds back. She is quite happy to let the fortepiano off the leash when the writing warrants it, particularly in the tempestuos 4th Sonata, Op. 23.
The recording, made in the summer of 2019 at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where Seskir teaches, is well judged; natural enough in balance without favouring either player and not too dry. Altogether this is one of those unpretentious discs that is worth returning to because it is full of fine musicianship, rather than virtuoso point-scoring.
SM