WINIFRED SMALL (violin)
MAURICE COLE (pianoforte)
All Elgar's chamber works, the Violin
Sonata, the Quintet, and the Quartet, were written in a Sussex village in the years 1918 and 1919, so it is safe to assume that reaction from the horrors of the preceding years was largely responsible for their quiet autumnal beauty. They were first heard when the War had ceased. Each is constructed on much the same plan. There are j three movements, no scherzo ; and the slow movement is in each work the jewel within the setting, a movement of rare beauty. Thus in the Violin Sonata it is the Romance that lingers longest in the memory. But the whole Sonata is a piece of lovely writing.
Joaquin Turina happens to be known in this country by his less personal works, colourful, thoroughly Spanish pieces such as ' The Procession of the Rocio ' and the three ' Fantastic Dances'. Actually, his chief interest is in chamber music and pure' music in general. By no means the whole of his work is characterised by markedly national colouring. Born in 1882, Turina studied with d'Indy in Paris for eight or nine years, and so acquired the solid classical outlook of the Cesar Franck school.
This Violin Sonata, however, is unmistakably Spanish in colouring and is closer in spirit to Ravel than to Franck. It is a comparatively recent work. dating from 1930.