Presto Recording of the Week
25th March 2022

BBC Music Magazine
May 2022
Chamber Choice

Rachel Podger (violin), Christopher Glynn

Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12 No. 1
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 'Spring'
Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 96

Rachel Podger, “the unsurpassed British glory of the baroque violin” (The Times), and Grammy award-winning pianist Christopher Glynn recorded Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano nos. 1, 5 and 10. Following the critically acclaimed Mozart/Jones Sonatas Fragment Completions (2021), this Beethoven album marks Podger and Glynn’s second release together.

Reading about Ludwig van Beethoven as a performer usually brings up the inevitable stories about his characteristic and idiosyncratic piano playing in Vienna. But delving further into his early years in Bonn, we read that, as a musician at the court of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, he was active as both organist and viola player. And when he left for Vienna in 1792 he was advised to take violin lessons with Ignaz Schuppanzigh.

Beethoven’s profound understanding of both the violin and the piano, and ability to combine them with astonishing invention and originality, is heard in ten sonatas. Three of which are performed on this new album.

"Listening to Rachel Podger (on the ‘Mauri’ Strad) and Christopher Glynn (on an 1840 Erard) is like experiencing the music in the clear light of day for the first time. Gone are those texturally swamping instrumental resonances, while vibrato is employed exquisitely as a subtle colouration rather than as an expressive default." - BBC Music Magazine, May 2022.