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. The middle volume of the three Beethoven recordings has been covered by Gramophone critic Andrew Farach-Colton.
‘I found much to admire in the first instalment of Antje Weithaas and Dénes Várjon’s survey of the Beethoven violin sonatas (7/23), although I felt their softer playing could have been more confidential.
I’ve no such quibbles with this second volume. Listen, say, to Várjon’s arresting sotto voce at the beginning of the C minor Sonata, Op 30 No 3 – and note, too, the way he ostensibly puts fermatas over the rests, extending the silences in order to ratchet up the drama.
I also love how soft and sustained their playing is at 2’12”, an extraordinary passage whose harmonic shifts seem to presage Schubert at his most lyrically eloquent and visionary. Then, in the warmth of the Adagio cantabile, listen to how Weithaas makes the most of the weird, wild birdcalls (at 4’40”).
Indeed, it’s the duo’s ability to characterise so imaginatively that makes these interpretations especially satisfying…