Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948)
Sonate pour violon n° 1 en sol mineur, op. 1
Sonate pour violon n° 2 en la mineur, op. 10
Sonate pour violon n° 3 en mi majeur, op. 27

Davide Alogna, violon
Costantino Catena, piano

Le vénitien Ermanno Wolf Ferrari, qui a construit sa réputation sur un corpus opératique apprécié de son vivant, s’est exercé au répertoire chambriste tout au long de sa carrière. Privilégiant l’écrin de la forme classique, les pièces qu’il lèguent débordent de musicalité. Après deux disques consacrés à de lumineux concertinos et de séduisants trios, Brilliant Classics publie un nouveau jalon en ressuscitant les trois sonates pour violon et piano du maître italien. La déception est à la hauteur de la promesse que suscite la découverte d’œuvres oubliées. En cause : le prosaïsme et l’uniformité du jeu de David Alogna (violon) et de Costantino Catena (piano). Dans la première sonate composée en 1895, le duo transalpin échoue dans sa tentative à raviver les contours lyriques et romantiques d’une œuvre de jeunesse, proche de l’esprit de Brahms et de Schumann. La seconde sonate, créée en 1901, libère des accents austères, accentués par les sonorités aigües du violon (un Stradivarius de 1715). En réprimant la passion et la tension, comme l’ironie et la tendresse, l’interprétation de la troisième sonate, plus tardive (1943), condamne l’auditeur à l’ennui. L’entreprise de réhabilitation des sonates pour violon et piano de Wolf Ferrari n’a manifestement pas encore trouvé ses prosélytes. (Jacques Potard)

Little-known but spellbinding late-Romantic sonatas receiving only their second complete recording: essential listening for collectors of Romantic-era rarities. With well-received albums of his piano trios, piano music and music for chamber orchestra, Brilliant Classics has expanded the horizons of many listeners to Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari (1876-1948). Previously knownprincipally for his operatic and dramatic works such as I Gioelli della Madonna, Wolf-Ferrari built up a body of instrumental music that was played across Europe during his lifetime. Association with Mussolini’s Fascist regime cast a shadow over his postwar reputation and only in recent years have listeners been able to rediscover the music of an inveterate Romantic.The First Violin Sonata was written while the 19-year-old Wolf-Ferrari was still studying with Joseph Rheinberger in Munich. However, its long-breathed melodies and grasp of large-scale form bely its composer’s relative inexperience. The eminent musicologist Wilhelm Altmann recognised its qualities: ‘The Sonata merits attention on account of its extraordinary freshness and beauty of tone colour… A quite original and exceedingly charming effect is produced by the second movement.’ All the same, the Brahmsian contours of the First Sonata are succeeded in the Second by a more personal idiom, one that more successfully integrates Wolf-Ferrari’s lifelong allegiances to both German and Italian schools of composition. Dating from 1901, it sings with a stern, almost austere passion rather in the manner of the composer’s Belgian contemporary César Franck; the second of the sonata’s two movements has an especially sacred character and ends in a mood of serenity. The Third Sonata is a very late work, dating from 1943, while Wolf-Ferrari was giving concert tours through Axis countries. Inparallel with the evolution of the trio of sonatas by Brahms, this E major work has a neoclassical character maintained throughout the suppressed passion of its four compact movements: there is even an excursion into strict counterpoint in the first movement’s development section, and the finale returns to the work’s opening theme, now touched by both irony and tenderness. With its wealth of subtlety, the Third Sonata in particular deserves wider attention, which it should receive thanks to the splendid advocacy of the Italian violinist Davide Alogna. This is his third album for Brilliant Classics, after an originally conceived album of violin-and-orchestra Romances (95896) and a unique collection of violin-and-viola concertante works by Mozart, Bruch and Ponce (95241).