Jennifer Pike Plays French Violin Sonatas Jennifer Pike & Martin Roscoe

• Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918): Violin Sonata in G Minor, L. 140, CD 148:
• 1 Debussy: Violin Sonata in G Minor, L. 140, CD 148: I. Allegro vivo 04:45
• 2 Debussy: Violin Sonata in G Minor, L. 140, CD 148: II. Intermède. Fantasque et léger 04:13
• 3 Debussy: Violin Sonata in G Minor, L. 140, CD 148: III. Finale. Très animé 04:25
• Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937): Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77:
• 4 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: I. Allegretto 08:33
• 5 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: II. Blues. Moderato 05:40
• 6 Ravel: Violin Sonata No. 2 in G Major, M. 77: III. Perpetuum mobile. Allegro 03:56
• César Franck (1822 - 1890): Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123, FWV 8:
• 7 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123, FWV 8: I. Allegretto ben moderato 06:13
• 8 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123, FWV 8: II. Allegro 08:16
• 9 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123, FWV 8: III. Recitativo-Fantasia. Ben moderato 07:28
• 10 Franck: Violin Sonata in A Major, CFF 123, FWV 8: IV. Allegretto poco mosso 06:29
• Total Runtime 59:58

Info for Jennifer Pike Plays French Violin Sonatas

Jennifer Pike, an exclusive Chandos artist and one of the brightest up-and-coming stars on the musical scene today, named BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2002, here performs some of the greatest violin music in the repertoire. On her first recital recording for Chandos, she partners the distinguished pianist Martin Roscoe, and together they superbly capture the Gaelic qualities of the violin sonatas by Franck, Debussy, and Ravel.

The Violin Sonata in A by César Franck was written in 1886 as a wedding present for the great violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. Sensuous, yet spiritual and serene, this is a triumphant example of cyclic form in four movements: a languid Allegretto, a fiery Allegro, a Recitativo-Fantasia recalling earlier themes, and a gentle finale which is one of the finest examples of a canon written after Bach. The 1886 premiere took place in an art gallery in Brussels, in a room so dark that Ysaÿe was forced to play the sonata largely from memory.

Debussy’s Violin Sonata was the third and last of a projected set of six sonatas for various instruments that Debussy embarked on in 1915, three years before his death. This work is very different from those of Franck and Ravel in terms of the freedom and fantasy that are expressed in its ideas and structure. It may have been inspired by a gypsy fiddler that Debussy heard on a visit to Budapest, indeed the violin writing in the central movement incorporates a number of ‘gypsy’ traits: trills, slides, and sudden bursts of excitement. This movement presents seventeen different speed indications in a mere six pages, which highlights Debussy’s strong desire to write music that ‘sounds as if it’s not written down’.

The Violin Sonata was Ravel’s final chamber work, combining the influence of blues with an austere beauty. In the late 1890s, the young Ravel had written one movement of a violin sonata, but it wasn’t until the 1920s that he completed the work. He worked on the basic premise that the two instruments, violin and piano, being incompatible, should be made as independent from each other as possible, without risking the collapse of the structure. The deliberate lack of relationship between the instruments tested the ears of the critics, and when Ravel took the sonata on his North American tour in 1928, they did not approve – though the work was very well received by its audiences!

"Pike finds much to relish in [the three sonatas], not only in her beautiful singing tone, but also in moments of hushed mystery, all captured in an admirably clear recording that slightly over-favours the violin. Debussy's multiple gear-changes, Ravel's jazz-inflected musings and Franck's intense emotions are negotiated with ease." (BBC Music Magazine)

"The most striking aspect of this challenging recital is Jennifer Pike's fearless exploration of the violin's lower dynamic range. French music is all about colour and here she reveals radiant hues and patinas that most players leave hidden under layers of interpretative accretion...Pike's dazzling interpretative flair and exemplary technique combine to create one of the most outstanding debut violin albums of recent years." (Classic FM Magazine)

"Pike never over-eggs the gypsy element in Debussy, the blues in Ravel or the Germanic influence in Franck: she simply makes sure they inhabit their distinctive idiom...And yet, thanks to her thoughtful, lightly worn musicianship and Martin Roscoe’s sensitive pianism, each piece retains its unmistakably Gallic flavour." (Financial Times)

Jennifer Pike, violin
Martin Roscoe, piano

Jennifer Pike
Renowned for her “dazzling interpretative flair and exemplary technique” (Classic FM), violinist Jennifer Pike has taken the musical world by storm with her unique artistry and compelling insight into music from the Baroque to the present day. In demand as soloist and recitalist all over the world, she is known as an artist of exceptional integrity and depth, whilst her ability to “hold an audience spellbound” (The Strad) and “luminous beauty of tone” (The Observer) have established her as one of the most exciting artists performing today.

Born to British and Polish parents in 1989 she first gained international recognition in 2002, when, aged 12, she became the youngest-ever winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year and the youngest major prizewinner in the Menuhin International Violin Competition. Aged 15 she made acclaimed débuts at the BBC Proms and Wigmore Hall, and her many subsequent Proms appearances have included the role of 2009 “featured artist”. She was invited to become a BBC New Generation Artist (2008-10), she won the inaugural International London Music Masters Award and became the only classical artist ever to win the South Bank Show/Times Breakthrough Award. Passionate about helping young people from all backgrounds enhance their lives through music, she was recently invited to become an ambassador for the Prince’s Trust and Foundation for Children and the Arts, and patron of the Lord Mayor’s City Music Foundation.

Performing extensively as soloist with major orchestras worldwide and appearing frequently on radio and television, recent highlights include concertos with all the BBC orchestras, London Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, Strasbourg Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Hallé, Rheinische Philharmonie, Tampere Philharmonic, Malmö Symphony, Auckland Philharmonia, Singapore Symphony and Nagoya Philharmonic orchestras. She recently performed Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending live on BBC Two at a special service commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of WWI in Westminster Abbey, with the Philharmonia orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall and at her Carnegie Hall debut with the Chamber Orchestra of New York.

Highlights of the 2015/16 season include a tour to Mexico with the London Philharmonic (Saint-Saëns, Alondra de la Parra), Sibelius Concerto with the Oslo Philharmonic and Jukka-Pekka Saraste as part of the Sibelius Festival 150th year celebrations, Prague Symphony Orchestra (Beethoven, Pietari Inkinen), Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra (Tchaikovsky, Fedoseyev), Orquesta Clásica Santa Cecilia (Brahms, Ken-David Masur), and the BBC Philharmonic (Vivaldi) as director and soloist. Special appearances also include performing to an audience of 11,000 at the Atlas Arena in Łódź, Poland as part of the ‘Night of the Proms’ tour broadcast on Polish TV, a broadcast performance of Schindler’s List as part of BBC Two’s Holocaust Memorial Day tribute and a live broadcast on Classic FM at the Queen’s 90th Birthday celebration concert. Next season she will perform concertos by Dvorak, Elgar, Sibelius, Bruch, Tchaikovsky and Mozart with orchestras including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic (Saraste), BBC Philharmonic (Juanjo Mena), BBC Concert Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and European Union Chamber Orchestra. She has worked with many eminent conductors including Andris Nelsons, Richard Hickox, Sir Mark Elder, Christopher Hogwood, Leif Segerstam, Tugan Sokhiev, Jiří Belohlávek, John Storgårds, Sir Roger Norrington, James Gaffigan and Martyn Brabbins. She has collaborated as soloist and chamber musician with artists including Anne-Sophie Mutter, Nikolaj Znaider, Adrian Brendel, Nicolas Altstaedt, Maxim Rysanov, Igor Levit, Martin Roscoe, Tom Poster and Mahan Esfahani.

A sought-after recitalist, she recently appeared at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Musée d’Orsay, Musashino Foundation and LSO St Luke’s, broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. In 2017 she curated an unprecedented event at the Wigmore Hall with three concerts in one day celebrating Polish music, in which she gave the UK premiere of Penderecki’s Capriccio for solo violin and a specially commissioned new work by Paulina Zalubska. An enthusiastic promoter of new music, she has had many works written for her, including Hafliði Hallgrímsson’s Violin Concerto, which she premièred with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Bray’s Scenes from Wonderland which she premièred with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall and Andrew Schultz’s Violin Concerto and Sonatina for solo violin, for which her recording was nominated for ‘Best Performance of an Australian Composition’ at the Australian Classical Music Awards.

Her prolific and widely-acclaimed discography on Chandos, Sony and ABC Classics includes the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Bergen Philharmonic and Sir Andrew Davis, described as “superb” (The Times) and “violin genius” (Mail on Sunday), Miklós Rózsa Violin Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic and Rumon Gamba, Bach with Sinfonietta Cracovia and Schultz with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. She recently recorded the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Edward Gardner on Chandos, acclaimed in the Observer for her “innate musicality and mercurial technique” and as “breathtakingly beautiful” by the Sunday Herald. Her recordings of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending with the Chamber Orchestra of New York on Naxos (The Strad Recommends, 2017) and David Bednall’s new works for violin and organ for Regent Records (Editor’s Choice, The Gramophone) were released recently.

In recognition of the impact she made in the performing arts, she was awarded a postgraduate scholarship by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama at the exceptional age of 16. She has studied with David Takeno and Robert Jacoby, and in 2012 she graduated with First Class Honours from Oxford University, where she was subsequently invited to take up the position of Artist-in-Residence. She plays a 1708 violin by Matteo Goffriller.

Martin Roscoe
With an extraordinary career spanning over four decades, Martin Roscoe is unarguably one of the UK’s best loved pianists. Renowned for his versatility at the keyboard, Martin is equally at home in concerto, recital and chamber performances. In an ever more distinguished career, his enduring popularity and the respect in which he is universally held are built on a deeply thoughtful musicianship allied to an easy rapport with audiences and fellow musicians alike.

With a repertoire of over 100 concertos performed or recorded Martin works regularly with many of the UK’s leading orchestras, having especially close links with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Hallé, Manchester Camerata, Northern Chamber Orchestra and with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, where he has given over ninety performances. Martin has also performed with orchestras and festivals across Europe, Canada, Australia and the Far East, and shared the concert platform with eminent conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder and Christoph von Dohnányi.

A prolific recitalist and chamber musician, Martin tours the UK extensively every season, including regular appearances at Wigmore Hall and Kings Place. He has long-standing associations with Peter Donohoe, Kathryn Stott, Tasmin Little and the Endellion and Maggini Quartets as well as more recent collaborations with Jennifer Pike, Ashley Wass, Matthew Trusler, Liza Ferschtman and the Brodsky, Escher and Vertavo Quartets. One of his most important ensembles, the Cropper Welsh Roscoe Trio, performed many times across the UK, most notably at Wigmore Hall.

Recent highlights include BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, whilst future plans include engagements with the BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Martin is Artistic Director of Ribble Valley International Piano Week, Beverley Chamber Music Festival and the Manchester Chamber Concerts Society.

Having made over 500 broadcasts, including seven BBC Prom appearances, Martin is one of the most regularly played pianists on BBC Radio 3. Martin has also made many commercial recordings for labels such as Hyperion, Chandos and Naxos. He has recorded the complete piano music of Nielsen and Szymanowski, as well as four discs in the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series. For the Deux-Elles label, Martin has recorded the complete Beethoven piano sonatas, the first four discs of which have been released to unanimous critical acclaim. Martin’s most recent disc is Volume 3 of the complete piano music of Dohnányi, released on Hyperion in 2015; the disc has been yet another success with reviews such as “commanding and warm-hearted... a delectable disc” (Gramophone) and “exuberant and expressive...brilliant technical precision” (BBC Music Magazine, 5 stars).

Teaching has always been an important part of Martin’s life and the development of young talent helps him to constantly re-examine and re-evaluate his own playing. He is currently a Professor of Piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London and has been awarded his Fellowship there.

Martin lives in the beautiful English Lake District which provides inspiration and relaxation, and also enables him to indulge his passions for the countryside and hill-walking.

This album contains no booklet.