Erwin Schulhoff - Violin Sonatas (Tanja Becker-Bender)

Information

Composer: Erwin Schulhoff

• (01-05) Suite for violin and piano, WV 18 (Op. 1)
• (06-09) Sonata for violin and piano No. 1, WV 24 (Op. 7)
• (10-13) Sonata for solo violin, WV 83
• (14-17) Sonata for violin and piano No. 2, WV 91

Tanja Becker-Bender, violin
Markus Becker, piano

Date: 2011
Label: Hyperion
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67833

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Review

Tanja Becker-Bender and Markus Becker champion Schulhoff’s chamber works

It is good to see recordings of Ervín Schulhoff’s music presenting his compositions on their own merits. If there is a Schulhoff problem today it has less to do with his premature death in 1942, a victim of Nazi persecution, than with the unstable, protean nature of his creative output. Schulhoff toyed with such a range of idioms that it isn’t clear when he is merely having us on. Neither the Dadaist prankster nor the socialist realist composer of big statements is represented here. The Suite, an early piece dating from 1911, is his official Opus 1 and it resembles the late Romantic music of his teacher, Max Reger. Markus Becker, a subtle and sophisticated executant, is, on disc at least, much associated with that composer’s instrumental oeuvre. Schulhoff’s First Violin Sonata (1913) adds Debussy to the mix without establishing an unmistakably personal stylistic profile.

The First World War triggered more absurdist experiments, banishing any vestiges of the palm court, but by 1927, when the remaining works in this programme were written, Schulhoff would seem to have mastered a more conventional, pseudo-ethnic or vaguely Bartókian form of modernism, content to peddle his jazz-inspired novelties elsewhere. Among his most durable mainstream scores, the Sonata for Solo Violin is not just an effective and compact display piece. Adopting some more extreme tempi than Daniel Hope (DG, 10/07), Tanja Becker-Bender can muster both impressively full tone and a not inappropriate astringent edge. No mean virtuoso, her previous release for Hyperion was an acclaimed set of Paganini Caprices (5/09) and it helps that the company provides a helpful booklet-note that does not over-egg the contextual pudding. The artwork is by the similarly unclassifiable Paul Klee. Worth a punt.

-- David Gutman, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: ***** / SOUND: *****
MusicWeb International  RECORDING OF THE MONTH

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/feb/10/schulhoff-solo-violin-piano-review

https://www.thestrad.com/schulhoff-violin-sonatas-nos1-and-2-suite-sonata-for-solo-violin/4816.article

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Erwin Schulhoff (8 June 1894 – 18 August 1942) was a Czech composer and pianist. Schulhoff's teachers teachers included Claude Debussy, Max Reger, Fritz Steinbach, and Willi Thern. Schulhoff's music went through a number of distinct stylistic periods. He was one of the first generation of classical composers to find inspiration in the rhythms of jazz. Schulhoff was one of the figures in the generation of European musicians whose successful careers were prematurely terminated by the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany and whose works have been rarely noted or performed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Schulhoff

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Tanja Becker-Bender (born February 11, 1978 in Stuttgart) is a German violinist. Becker-Bender has performed since age of eleven and won top prizes and awards in national and international competitions. She has performed as a soloist with renowned orchestras and conductors, and has appeared as a chamber musician in festivals together with artists such as Gidon Kremer and Yuri Bashmet. Becker-Bender teaches at the University of Music Saar in Saarbrücken, the University of Music and Theater Hamburg and the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanja_Becker-Bender
http://www.tanja-becker-bender.de/

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