Both highly in demand on a worldwide scale as unique, exceptional chamber music performers: violinist Antje Weithaas and pianist Dénes Várjon each ideally combine the highest degree of enthusiasm and technical refinement.
Their energetic, passionate playing is the result of intense concentration and precision, combined with a large portion of musicality. The middle volume of the three volumes has now been released on the CAvi label.
“In Antje Weithaas’s and Dénes Várjon’s complete edition of these sonatas in three volumes, each individual release is designed to illustrate those stages of artistic development (instead of featuring the works in strict chronological order). From the onset, Beethoven ascribed utter importance to the principle of dialogue between the two instruments, as we can infer from a letter he wrote to Artaria on 19 June 1793.
The current Vol. 2 release contrasts the third sonata (in E Flat Major) of the early Op. 12 group with the second and third sonatas of Op. 30. The CD begins with the C Minor Sonata Op. 30, which is undoubtedly one of the two most dramatic sonatas among all ten works in the same genre (the other one being the “Kreutzer” Sonata Op. 47).
The E Flat Major sonata is also the most dramatic one within Op. 12. On the other hand, the last sonata (G Major) in Op. 30 provides a contrast in the form of a cheerful “final dance” (Kehraus), a function it also fulfils on this CD in the wake of the E Flat Major Sonata Op. 12.” (Excerpt from the booklet notes by Elisabeth Richter)
