BaL 23.06.18 - Debussy: Sonata for Violin and Piano

[LMcD]

I think immediately of getting to know the work via a Saga LP (note stuck-on stereo label!) with Hugh Bean and David Parkhouse which I bought in the 60s. I played it a lot at a time when I didn't own that many discs. The work was also one of my early CD purchases, a very good Naxos disc of French Violin Sonatas with Dong-Suk Kang and Pascal Devoyon.

[Mal]

A little surprising, perhaps, that Warner opted for Menuhin, rather than Capuçon, when compiling their complete Debussy box released this year.

The single disk is selling for £10 as a bestseller, so maybe they'll make more profit by not sticking it in the box! Is the Menuhin good? None of my guides recommend it. Just heard Menuhin and his sister in the critics' favourite performance of Enescu's Violin Sonata No.3 on Naxos Historical and I thought it was superb, so I could imagine him performing the Debussy well, on a good day. The Capuçon disk is very tempting, it has five chamber works by Debussy, and I don't have three of them, plus it's "BBC Music Magazine Award Winner 2018".

[silvestrione]

I think immediately of getting to know the work via a Saga LP (note stuck-on stereo label!) with Hugh Bean and David Parkhouse which I bought in the 60s. I played it a lot at a time when I didn't own that many discs. The work was also one of my early CD purchases, a very good Naxos disc of French Violin Sonatas with Dong-Suk Kang and Pascal Devoyon.

Ah yes! I had the Saga LP, played it to death, loved all the pieces on it, Ravel and Debussy.

Now have the new Capucon / Chamayou, very good. Has superb flute playing from Pahud, in 'Syrinx', and the Sonata for Flute, Harp and Viola, as well. At the moment, prefer that, and the cello sonata, but this programme may change that!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Even the Americans spell it with a C.

[Bryn]

Even the Americans spell it with a C.

Yes, "c" for optical, but "k" for the hard kind.

[Mal]

My concise OED has:

disc, disk, n 1. thin circular plate of any material...

This indicates that disk and disc can be used interchangeably in any situation. So compact disk, optical disk and hard disc are valid. Note, this is not a US/UK thing as then the entry would be like:

||colour, *color

Might be a fun thread trying to think of more examples like this, here's a triple variable spelling:

durra, dura, dhurra - kind of sorghum

But let's not derail this thread, Debusy would not be amused. (Do the French allow such variable spellings at all? They tend to be very strict in these matters.)

[ardcarp]

My thanks for your brilliant list, Alpie. I just don't know how you do it week by week! And then some idiot like me finds artists not on it. My CD was bought in France some time ago (Calliope label) and has Annick Roussin (violin) and Elisabeth Rigollet (piano).

https://www.allmusic.com/performance/sonata-for-violin-piano-l-140-mq0000717384

It's a work I have loved ever since attempting to accompany my father when I was a teenager...even though there were bits I couldn't get my fingers round. It's way up on my list of mood-lightening discs.

But let's not derail this thread, Debusy would not be amused. (Do the French allow such variable spellings at all? They tend to be very strict in these matters.)

L'Academie Francaise.

[vinteuil]

L'Academie Francaise.

... or 'Académie française', as the Académie française would have it.

.

[ardcarp]

Oops

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, "c" for optical, but "k" for the hard kind.

I heard somewhere that disk was short for "diskette".

However, Acorn computers had drives for hard discs and floppy discs.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But you are right. Derailing the thread is not good.

I do not know the Debussy Violin & Piano Sonata - in fact I was completely unaware of its existence.

[Serial_Apologist]

But you are right. Derailing the thread is not good.

I do not know the Debussy Violin & Piano Sonata - in fact I was completely unaware of its existence.

Oh it's a wonderful, vital work - Debussy's very last: or did he finally finish with a last song?

[ardcarp]

Oh it's a wonderful, vital work

Not what you'd expect from a man affected by mortal illness and traumas of war:

http://stringsmagazine.com/a-look-back-100-years-later-on-debussys-violin-sonata-the-last-piece-he-wrote-before-his-death/

[Beresford]

There are lots of references to Debussy having planned to write six sonatas, but only completing three before his death.
Does anyone know the instrumentation for the three that were not finished, (or even started)?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There are lots of references to Debussy having planned to write six sonatas, but only completing three before his death.
Does anyone know the instrumentation for the three that were not finished, (or even started)?

The one that's always fascinated me is the one for Harpsichord, Oboe, and Horn - and there was (IIRC) going to be a "grand finale" Sonata in which all the instruments used in the previous five were to be used. Can't recall offhand what the remaining one was going to be - Clarinet & Piano? (Something more "conventional", and the Clarinet is the obvious "missing candidate".)