Poulenc: Sounds of War

Milstein and Shybayeva encapsulate the music's war-time provenance and propensity for pouring old musical wine into new bottles with rhythmic alacrity and glowing lyricism, often to startling... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2015, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 30th Mar 2015
Catalogue No: COBRA0045
Label: Cobra
Length: 66 minutes

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Poulenc: Violin Sonata, FP 119

Work length19:25

Hanna Shybayeva, Maria Milstein

I. Allegro con Fuoco

Track length6:40

II. Intermezzo: Très Lent et Calme

Track length6:48

III. Presto Tragico

Track length5:57

Janáček: Violin Sonata

Work length17:44

Hanna Shybayeva, Maria Milstein

I. Con Moto

Track length5:07

II. Ballada: Con Moto

Track length5:13

III. Allegretto

Track length2:35

IV. Adagio

Track length4:49

Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80

Work length29:34

Hanna Shybayeva, Maria Milstein

I. Andante Assai

Track length7:28

II. Allegro Brusco

Track length7:01

III. Andante

Track length7:30

IV. Allegrissimo

Track length7:35

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The Sonatas recorded on this CD are united by the circumstances which brought them to life – each of these works was composed during wartime. For composers, artistic creation in times of war appears as a necessity, a cry for help and a call to humanity. In their music one can hear the acute urgency of someone whose world is being torn apart and whose life is under threat. Creating during the major conflicts of the previous century, the artists experienced and expressed this distress in many different ways - from direct, descriptive depictions of war horror to nostalgic recollections of quieter past times or even “escape worlds”. As performers, Maria Milstein and Hanna Shybayeva found it fascinating to bring together three very different composers, each reflecting the surrounding turmoil in their own way and musical language.

Francis Poulenc dedicated his Violin Sonata to the memory of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, executed in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War.

“In the 1914 Sonata for violin and piano I could just about hear the sound of the steel clashing in my troubled head.” These words of Leoš Janáček give a vivid image of the tormented music of the Violin Sonata, a work which he began composing at the outbreak of World War I and completed only in 1921.

Sergei Prokofiev started to compose his First Violin Sonata as early as 1938 and completed it in 1946, one year after the end of World War II. Surprisingly enough this Sonata, despite its dark and ferocious character, is less directly linked with the war than the Sonatas of Poulenc and Janáček. The impetus should be seen in the growing feeling of fear which dominated during the years of Stalin's repression (especially in the second half of the 1930's).

Reviews

August 2015

Milstein and Shybayeva encapsulate the music's war-time provenance and propensity for pouring old musical wine into new bottles with rhythmic alacrity and glowing lyricism, often to startling effect.

June 2015

Milstein and Shybayeva have clearly studied [these three sonatas] in depth…these are thoughtful, powerful interpretations.

Poulenc: Sounds of War

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