Octo_Russ

Beethoven - Violin Sonata 5 [McAslan/ Blakely]

Here's Lorraine McAslan again, i mentioned her Kreutzer Sonata last month [8th February 2010], and here's the companion piece, with the title 'spring' it may seem a fairly youthful work, but Beethoven was in his early thirties when he wrote it, and the Kreutzer was only composed no more than two years later, hardly making it a mature work, but it sounds like a work of pure genius.

I enjoyed so much the second movement Adagio by McAslan, it's such a gentle piece, the piano starts off with this almost metronome pulse in the left hand [0:05-0:40], while the right hand plays the tune, and the violin plays in the background, and then the violin takes over the tune [0:44-1:20], but the left hand piano stills marks time with that lovely pulse, which comes to an end on [1:23], but the whole thing nicely starts up again [2:20-4:19], and the same trades happen, but this time with the tune transformed to something more complex, it all stops and starts, but it's this constant 'beat' in the background, which acts as a canvas for the melody to be painted on, nice and dreamy, McAslan & Blakely both get it right.

Here's Shoji Sakaya playing this movement on YouTube.