In a market besieged by repertoire duplication, who wouldn’t desire world-premiere recordings of terrific, virtually unknown music? That’s exactly what we get on this disc of viola works by Dutch composers. Within the conservative formal parameters of Hendrik Andriessen’s three-movement Sonata (1967) lies a fertile, well-proportioned harmonic imagination and an easy, unforced lyric quality into which sensitive, accomplished players such as violist Francien Schatborn and pianist Jeannette Koekkoek can dig. Shades of early Scriabin and late Franck benignly inform the same composer’s early one-movement Sonatina. Julius Röntgen’s four-movement C minor sonata from 1924 exploits the viola’s full range, along with telling use of ponticello effects (the second movement’s opening section). The Allegro molto’s slithery harmonic twists and turns anticipate early 20th-century German Romantics, together with motoric dissonances that are remarkably Bartókian for a composer born more than a quarter century before the Hungarian master.
Two short pieces by Henriëtte Bosmans constitute songs without words–ideal encores. Much of the textural sparseness and imitative linear movement characterizing Géza Frid’s four-movement Sonatina sounds like Shostakovich kidnapped by the members of Les Six. The final Presto perpetuo rarely allows the violist to relax, and seems to end in mid-air. Its formidable double stops occasionally challenge even Schatborn’s superb technical control, but her conviction and concentration throughout this recital are extraordinary–and Koekkoek’s keyboard contributions transcend mere accompaniment, all of which adds up to an eminently recommendable listening adventure.
