Franck / Strauss: Violin sonatas (Dumay/Lortie)

Augustin Dumay [violin] Louis Lortie [piano] César Franck"'s passionate and sunny violin sonata has long been regarded as one of the greatest in the repertoire, and is the work of a composer at the height of his powers. Richard Strauss"'s violin sonata, composed a year after Franck"'s in 1887, is the work of a young composer on the cusp of discovering his mature voice; lyrical and sumptuous, it has all the hallmarks of his later style. This disc includes two Franck rarities - "'Mélancolie"' and the "'Prelude, Fugue and Variation"' Op.18, originally for organ, heard here in an arrangement by Augustin Dumay and Louis Lortie. The distinguished violinist and conductor Augustin Dumay and pianist Louis Lortie - recently desribed as "'mesmerising"' by the New York Times - are now a regular partnership, and this recording marks the duo"'s debut recording. Their programme of Franck and Strauss concludes with the wonderful Heifetz arrangement of Strauss"'s song "'Auf stillem Waldespfad"'. Dumay has a busy ONYX schedule this year with a CD of four great Mozart violin sonatas, in which he is joined by Maria João Pires, and as conductor and soloist in Brahms"'s Serenade No.1 and the two Beethoven Romances with his Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra. .