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“Brilliantly-chosen repertoire, exceptionally well played and recorded. The familiar masterworks by Elgar, Debussy and Ravel are cleverly juxtaposed with more recent music by Barbosa and Ivan Moody – later national exemplars of their great forebears. The playing throughout is full of subtly-nuanced phrasing from both gifted musicians, and this unusual but worthwhile disc is strongly recommended for those who seek the little-known but worthwhile byways of musical development.”

“Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos present a concert programme of original versions for violin and piano, including great names in the history of 20th-century music, such as the Portuguese composer Luíz Barbosa and the recently deceased Ivan Moody. It begins with Edward Elgar's unusual Violin Sonata in E minor, Op. 82, from 1918, in contrast to Debussy's Sonata, conceived the same year. These are difficult works, complicated in their textures, and showing signs of Elgar's characteristic pastoral and British sound. Monteiro does not delve into Wagnerian darkness, but keeps things moving, even in the highly melodic central Romance, where his strong vibrato has been the norm in his performance. Meanwhile, Debussy's composition begins to move away from the kind of pictorial and sensual music that had driven his work for the previous 15 or 20 years. In fact, it offers a glimpse of the purely abstract musical wonders that the composer might have created had he not succumbed to cancer at the age of 55. The programme is completed by Tzigane by Ravel and the more than interesting Romance by Barbosa and Ascent by Moody, a work conceived during the Covid pandemic by the British composer. It is a fresh recital beautifully recorded and demands special attention for its interest.”

The recording begins with the Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor Opus 82 by Edward Elgar (1857-1934). The ensemble begins in a passionate and lyrical manner and brings out the full kaleidoscope that lies behind Monteiro's violin. The romantic Andante that follows is full of feeling. It seems as if the violin and piano are in dialogue like two lovers. A piece in which passion is found, but also a great deal of tranquility. Like a gentle relief for the heart that sometimes beats.

When Debussy (1862-1918) wrote his Sonata for violin and piano in G minor, he was going through a difficult health period. This melancholic pathos can also be heard in the piece. The piano must, so to speak, temporarily support the violin in order to finally achieve a beautiful rhythmic dialogue. It is a bit like telling a story about willpower, where the violin finally takes over.

A bit of chauvinism with a Portuguese composer, Luís Barbosa (1887-1952). His Romance for violin and piano has not been recorded before. He himself was one of the greatest Portuguese violinists. The piece is a great example of chamber music. A nostalgic neo-romantic with beautiful dialogues between piano and violin as equal partners who together reach small climaxes that continue to expand the piece into a beautiful whole. A piece to enjoy especially in a moment of tranquility.

The British composer Ivan Moody (1964-2024) was particularly fascinated by biblical themes and wrote the intimate Ascent for Violin and Piano during the Covid pandemic. Above all, it feels like a work of hope and comfort. It can be experienced primarily as a meditative experience and shows that people need not fear. As if there is a great sense of security in the piece. One feels the cold of death and also the loneliness. But one also feels the inviting light that can come from a possible other side. A piece that transforms an ending into a new beginning. The composer himself passed away 12 days after this recording.

This recording in five parts ends with a work by Ravel, the Tzigane Rapsodie de Concerto for Violin and Piano. A beautiful virtuoso piece after all its modesty, which releases itself on the listener like a breath of fresh air. Very cathartic!”

Four early 20th-century works for violin and piano alongside a more recent one in a wonderfully wide-ranging recital from the Portuguese duo who find all sorts of new colours in Elgar and give a certain style to Ravel

“The latest disc from Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro and pianist João Paulo Santos on Etcetera, brings together four works for violin and piano, all written in the first twenty-five years of the century, the violin sonatas by Elgar and Debussy, the Romance for Violin and Piano by Luíz Barbosa and Ravel's Tzigane, alongside these Monteiro has included Ascent for Violin and Piano by contemporary composer Ivan Moody.

Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos have a fondness for both the highways and byways of the romantic repertoire. I last reviewed their recording of the piano trios of Ernest Chausson and Eugene Ysaÿe and they have also given us a disc of violin sonatas by Luís de Freitas Branco, Maurice Ravel, and Heitor Villa-Lobos [see my review].

On this disc we begin with Elgar's Violin Sonata, one of the group of late chamber works he wrote in 1918, all remarkably different in their approach to music. Listening to Monteiro and Paulo Santos, you are reminded that Elgar had a significant reputation amongst his European contemporaries, his music was seen as European. The opening movement seems, at times, almost by a different composer as Monteiro and Paulo Santos bring out other resonances. This is tempestuous passionate music, with Monteiro playing with richly vibrant tone and a use of portamento which brings a new quality to the music. This continues in the lovely slow movement, where Monteiro's tone is richly dark and the two give the opening an, at times, gypsy-ish quality. There is nobilmente and passion, but this is Elgar seen from abroad, and wonderful it is too. The finale, poised and beautifully phrased, is perhaps the most conventionally English-sounding of the three. 

Debussy's Violin Sonata has a similar place to Elgar's in that it is from a group of late chamber works by a composer who was dying and would write little more (Elgar simply retreated into silence). The tone and approach is the same but Monteiro also gives a somewhat veiled quality to the opening, and phrases with beautiful poise. The slow movement begins with an intense, rhapsodic section, developing into something vivid and highly coloured. Perhaps not quite as léger as might have been imagined yet definitely fantasque. It was in this movement that I noticed the recording's acoustic the most, as there is lots of space around the musicians, Monteiro's violin is heard distinctly in a place with an acoustic, rather than being closely miked with almost no sense of background. We're back in rhapsody land with the opening of the final movement, yet also the piano hints at exotic elements, and then the two allow the movement's vivid busyness to build little by little until a fine climax.

Luíz Barbosa was a great violinist, born and died in Lisbon. His only known composition is his Romance. Actually rather a salon-ish piece, Monteiro and Santos give it such a committed, richly passionate performance full of vibrant tone and characterful playing, that they knock it into a different world and the three and half minute work definitely makes a good bridge to the Ravel.

Ascent for violin and piano is one of Ivan Moody's final works, written in 2020 during the pandemic and dedicated to a colleague who passed away at the time. An unusual polymath, according to his obituary in the Gramophone, "Moody held various academic posts, including Professor of Church Music at the University of Eastern Finland from 2012 to 2014, and worked extensively as a conductor. A onetime member of the choir of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in London, he subsequently served as cantor in both Greek and Bulgarian parishes in Lisbon. In 2007 he was ordained to the priesthood, becoming rector of the Serbian Orthodox Parish of the Transfiguration in Estoril, Portugal. "

Monteiro and Santos worked with Moody on the piece, giving its public premiere in 2021. It is rather freely rhapsodic yet ethereal. The piano part, largely supportive, does not really go anywhere, it simply anchors things, allowing Monteiro's violin to float free in a wonderful way. Moody died, prematurely after a long illness, in Lisbon just twelve days after this recording was made.

Ravel wrote Tzigane for the Hungarian violinist, Jelly d'Aranyi. She had terrific technique, allied to her exotic (at the time) ancestry and whilst Hungarian music is far far more than just gypsy violins, it was these that Ravel channelled for Tzigane. D'Aranyi was quite a performer, Bartok's two violin sonatas were dedicated to her and the two performed them in London in the early 1920s, RVW dedicated his violin concerto to her and Holst wrote his double concerto for her and her sister! And that's not to mention the seances and rediscovery of the Schumann Violin Concerto.

Full disclosure, I do think that Tzigane really needs the orchestra (including the all important harp) to work best. But Monteiro is glorious in the long unaccompanied rhapsodic introduction, he really leans into dark gypsy-ish tones, managing to make something almost mysterious and threatening, and the main section has that real folk-ish feel. There is nothing light and airy here, all is dark and heavy. As with the Barbosa, the full-blooded approach here moves the work well out of the salon.

I enjoyed this recital immensely, and it surprised me in that Monteiro and Santos managed to bring either a new range of colour and timbre to the pieces, or played familiar music with such intensity that it ceased to be familiar.”

Monteiro and Santos have delivered concert performances of the five works many times, and it shows in the fluidity of their treatments and the authority with which they're executed. While all are dramatically different in character, four of the pieces emerged during the same era, the first quarter of the twentieth century; composed in 2020, Moody's Ascent is the outlier in that regard. Even though the Ravel work follows Moody's in the album sequence, a through-line from the previous century to the current one is established by the selections.

One of three chamber pieces written towards the end of his career, Elgar's1918 Sonata for Violin and Piano in E minor, Op. 82 begins with a zestful “Allegro risoluto” that the duo attacks tenaciously. A romantic theme quickly emerges that's articulated with precision and followed by lyrical others that arrest the tempo with dreamy languor. The recital partners adapt to the work's rapid shifts in tempo and mood with authority, their execution confident and transitions seamlessly effected. Naturally slower, the aromatic, ABA-structured “Romance” follows a sweetly melodic dialogue with a central episode highlighted by a tender and beautifully paced violin expression. The closing “Allegro non troppo” caps the work with material that initially exudes serenity before surrendering to a more passionate impulse and an intense, declamatory re-voicing of the initial theme.

Debussy was in ill health during the writing of his Sonata for Violin and Piano in G minor but mustered the energy to complete it in 1917, a year before his death. He premiered it in Paris on May 5th, 1917 with violinist Gaston Poulet in the last public appearance by the composer. A sombre tone informs the opening movement, yet enough atmospheric sparkle surfaces to identify it as the handiwork of the French composer. Departing dramatically from the first part, the lively second, “Intermede,” mixes Spanish- and jazz-tinged elements into an intoxicating blend, after which the exuberant “Finale” advances through radiant field of playful gestures, with Monteiro's darting violin leading the charge. Barbosa, who was born in Lisbon in 1887 and died there sixty-five years later, was celebrated as a great violinist and teacher. Monteiro honours him as a composer, however, in presenting his only known work, a lovely if short salon-styled piece titled Romance for Violin and Piano. Open-hearted and uplifting, the work would seem to be an ideal encore choice, especially when it's only three-and-a-half minutes long.

Born in 1964, Moody studied with, among others, John Tavener, and is known for works that, at least by title, show some kinship with his late teacher, ones such as Passion and Resurrection (1992) and Akathistos Hymn (1998). One of his final works—Moody died in 2024 twelve days after Monteiro and Santos's recording was made—Ascent for Violin and Piano was written during the pandemic and dedicated to the duo in memory of composer Isadora Zebaljan, who passed away during that time. Moody wanted the material to exude an ethereal and meditative character and asked the two to imagine Isadora's spirit rising to heaven as they performed this delicate, hushed elegy. During the twelve-minute piece, long violin tones are sustained in the instrument's upper register as sparse sprinkles of piano ascend upwards to convey ascent.

Ravel's Tzigane ends the disc on a tour de force note with a series of variations that, in incorporating double-stops, glissandos, harmonics, pizzicatos, and so on, accentuate the vast range of which the violin's possible. After opening with an extended, explorative cadenza that's by turns exotic and haunting, Monteiro ventures into playful, irreverent, and even rustic zones, Santos his gleeful sidekick every step of the way. Throughout the release, the renditions by the two are engrossing and their interpretations sound. (…) the release is a fine addition to an impressive discography these recital partners are building.”

Never lacking a new challenge, the violinist Bruno Monteiro always knows how to surprise us, knowing how to combine, as in here, temperaments that make his instrument vibrate. The playing is all the more expressive and rich as the instrumentalist finds in João Paulo Santos, the ideal pianist, a subtle and very committed partner.

“The ELGAR Sonata is the least known of this first 20th century, highlighted by the violinist Bruno Monteiro; alongside Debussy, it composes an excellent introduction, which in 1918, affirmed the mature style of the very official British composer, best known for his symphonic dimension and his oratorios; the Sonata is a delicious, even captivating work, always balancing between vigor and nobility; the two performers know how to play with a sharp dialogue (with singular frictions) which knows how to be intoxicating (the central romance, here particularly singing, suspended, caressing and with a suggestive climate...). The two artists especially emphasize in the 3rd movement the magnitude of the Allegro, very assertive and even imperious in its final major key.

A year earlier (March 1917), DEBUSSY completed his own Sonata for violin and piano: a testamentary score which also embodies the last performance, the final breath of a sick composer who knows he is doomed (the premiere in May sees the composer at the piano for his last public appearance); the depth, the intimacy, the secret introspection of an affirmed self (and which always slips away), are inscribed here with a rare pathetic delicacy, which the violin and the piano express in a series of floating sequences, constantly allusive, of authentic poetic force (Allegro vivo); Debussy's invention is further affirmed in the central movement, free and fanciful (noted "whimsical and light"), which stretches and unfolds as if improvised on the famous Iberian ostinato; Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos electrify each other in this series that is both facetious and subtly nostalgic, with moving, frank, troubled outpourings. It is its whirling and empty movement which diffuses a climate of hallucination which the performers capture with finesse.

The RAVEL of 1924 takes the technical challenges even further: “Tzigane” demands foolproof dexterity from the violinist: Glisndi, pizzicati, double strings, harmonic jumps… Bruno Monteiro without failing approaches the succession of variations as freely improvised, but in a unitary breath despite the required rhapsodic volubility; the very inspired violinist underlines each contrasting effect of the ample opening cadenza, each projection between parody and frankness, in turn playing references to Liszt, to Paganini, there between seduction and sonic vertigo. The dancing, furtive theme, on an interval of a fifth, affirms an ideally nervous Bartokian vigor; little by little, the violin line will amplify, daring all the deliriums, in virtuoso extravagance, fantastical, furiously gypsy overbidding... to the point of trance, like Ravel (regarding his last movements), in has the secret (and astonishing expressive mastery).

In addition to this very ambitious program (which in its mastery proves all the more deserving), Bruno Monteiro adds the world premiere of “Romance” by Luíz Barbosa, a spacious and dreamy piece, with a captivating scent. Same totally suspended, even hypnotic and ascending atmosphere for “Ascent” by Ivan Moody, who died in 2024. In each piece, so contrasting and distinct, the complicity of the two instrumentalists is affirmed.”

“The pleasant, often intricate dualities of music invite particularly trenchant exploration in the form of duets – sometimes pieces composed specifically for two performers, sometimes ones arranged so two players can delve into them together. When works are well-presented for their complementarity and contrast, both approaches can be highly successful. A new Et’cetera Records release featuring a balanced, thoughtful collaboration between violinist Bruno Monteiro and pianist João Paulo Santos explores pieces written for their instruments – including two world première recordings, one of them of a piece dedicated to Monteiro. Elgar’s 1918 Violin Sonata in E Minor, which opens the recital, is an introspective, crepuscular work, its pervasive melancholy likely explaining why it is not among the composer’s more-popular compositions. The strangely hesitant central movement, although labeled Romance, is particularly uncertain in approach, although Monteiro and Santos plumb its underlying lyricism to good effect once they uncover it. The elegance of the concluding Allegro non troppo is the most-attractive element here, even though the movement’s flow is repeatedly interrupted, as if Elgar pulls his thoughts up short from time to time. Debussy’s Sonata for Violin and Piano is from the same time period (1917) and was the composer’s last major composition. It shares some of the atmosphere of Elgar’s work (Debussy’s piece is in G minor, Elgar’s in E minor) but is more compressed, atmospheric and intermittently passionate. Monteiro and Santos take an expansive view of the sonata: the opening Allegro vivo, in particular, is paced quite moderately, generating considerable expressiveness. The dissonant, cadenza-like portions of the central movement, quite aptly labeled fantasque et léger, make a particularly strong impression in this performance, and the passionate elements of the finale come through quite well. The remaining works on this interestingly multifaceted CD are single-movement ones. Romance for Violin and Piano by Luíz Barbosa (1887-1952) is one of the disc’s world premières. A pleasant three-and-a-half-minute bit of salon-like expressiveness, it is enjoyable but not particularly memorable. Ascent for Violin and Piano by Ivan Moody (1963-2024), the other première and the work dedicated to Monteiro, is considerably more extended (12 minutes) and strongly contrasting in sensibility: while Barbosa is concerned mainly with how the violin and piano combine, Moody is much more interested in how they contrast – at times they seem to play independently of each other, coming together almost as if by coincidence. Moody’s contemporary harmonic language also contrasts strongly with the Romantic one of Barbosa. Moody’s piece does not really sustain throughout: it repeatedly sounds as if it is evaporating, only to have a phrase re-emerge from the quiet or near-quiet. It is, however, interesting for the many ways in which its approach to violin-and-piano music contrasts differs from that of Barbosa – and, for that matter, from the approaches of the other composers on this disc. The CD concludes with a work that is about the length of Moody’s but is very different in almost every way: Ravel’s Tzigane. Better known in its violin-and-orchestra form, Tzigane was originally written for violin and piano – the latter with a now-obsolete attachment called the luthéal that changed the instrument’s tone color. The music is “Gypsy-ish” in that it does not use any actual Gypsy melodies, and it gives the violinist considerable scope for expressiveness and technical display – indeed, the first half is an extended violin solo, which Monteiro plays with considerable panache. The work’s second half comes across equally well, the two performers’ melodies interwoven into a pleasant sonic tapestry that brings this very well-played disc to a highly effective conclusion.”

Monteiro's sound formation is passionate and richly varied, the voice strictly clear, the violin playing passionatly and lyrical, the art of interpretation full of evocation and intuition. Santos proves to be Monteiro's ideal partner thanks to his no less colorful and empathetic way of playing, which leaves room for both his and the violinist's imagination. In short, the interpretative and technical refinement in this interaction guarantees the great artistic prestige it expresses. 

This album proves once again the musical-chameleon-like nature of their music making, be it Elgar, Debussy, Barbosa, Moody or Ravel: each composer, each work is attributed its completely individual sound and its world of experience in a unique, rare way.

The CD booklet also features, of course, my good friend, the British composer, musicologist, theologian and priest Ivan Moody (his Ascent, also a 'world premiere recording'). Moody died eleven days after the completion of these recordings, on January 18, 2024, at the age of 59. You can read an obituary about him here.

But back to this album, which not only paints an exceptionally beautiful picture of the two musicians, but also of these five works. The beautiful recording also contributes to this.”

“Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro and pianist João Paulo Santos begin their album with Edward Elgar’s Violin Sonata, whose alternation of passionate and peaceful moods make this composition so appealing. The two prove to be an inspired duo, with the necessary breath to perform Elgar’s work effectively.       

The performance of the Debussy Sonata is also a highlight. With a palpable sympathy for this composer’s music, Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos play with a very personal rhythmic feel and great sensitivity to bring the many facets of the sonata to life in a very individual, free and originally gestural interpretation.

The lyrical and emotional Romance by Luiz Barbosa and the beautiful, mysterious and meditative Ascent by Ivan Moody (1963-2024) lead to Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane, which Bruno Monteiro plays very thoughtfully and with a sad undertone in the solo, almost as a continuation of the piece by Moody, who died only this year.

We may have heard the Tzigane more racy and passionate, but this sensitive performance, in which the piano plays an exciting role, is extremely appealing. Particularly pleasing are the many colors that give the piece its very own character. Sometimes Satos even manages to make his piano sound like a cymbal.

With this album, the Portuguese duo once again proves that, on the basis of a solid technique, they are capable of interpretations that are highly musical and, above all, inspired and very personal.”

When last we met, figuratively speaking, it was in Fanfare 47:4, in which issue I reviewed Monteiro and Santos’s album of chamber works by Korngold. They were joined on that recording by cellist Miguel Rocha, and as always, execution and artistic integrity were of the highest standards. (…)

Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos deliver a dramatically intense, powerful performance of the Elgar, not shying away from the music’s contentious moments. They don’t try to make of it something it’s not—i.e., a chamber music version of the Cello Concerto. They play it for what it is, warts and all, and in so doing, they reveal a strength of character in the score—a determination to persevere—that I don’t think I’ve heard projected before quite as vividly.

Debussy was on his way out—and not to the café around the corner—when he composed his very last work in 1917, the Violin Sonata in G Minor. It’s a modest piece in every way—modest of means, of proportion, and of expression. The Violin Sonata was but the third in a projected cycle of six sonatas for various combinations of instruments, which remained an unfulfilled promise when the composer died in 1918.

Monteiro and Santos’s performance is the art of understatement and intimation. While they don’t shy away from projecting the commedia dell’arte-like character of the second movement, marked, Intermède fantasque et léger, they do so in ways both sly and subtle that bring out the stealth and scheming in this snarky scherzo. Very nicely done.

Monteiro’s Tzigane is not the feral Gypsy we so often hear. His approach to the piece is different and I, for one, love it. Because Ravel’s writing brutalizes the violin with vicious assaults—excoriating dissonant double stops, left-hand pizzicato, artificial harmonics, a runaway perpetuum mobile, wide leaps across strings and in positions, and notes practically off the end of the fingerboard on the G string (!)—it is virtually impossible to play the piece without sounding raw, raucous, and abrading. That’s probably what Ravel intended. This, after all, is a portrait—a grotesque one at that—of the Gypsy in the wild, not the Gypsy civilized. The work is a brilliant caricature and masterful mockery of all the Hungaro-Roma pieces that preceded it, such as Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies, Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, and its nearest target, Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen.

Monteiro may be only the second violinist I’ve heard in Tzigane that civilizes the Gypsy, the other violinist being Arthur Grumiaux in his orchestral version account of the work with Jean Fournet and Lamoureux Orchestra. How it’s possible to play so high on the G string without it sounding like the life being choked out of a chicken, or to bow some of those broken chords and double stops without grating, grinding, and rasping, I don’t know, but Grumiaux and now Monteiro both managed it and still left no doubt that this was the swaggering, leering Gypsy Ravel had in mind. This is an amazing accomplishment for Monteiro, technically as well as musically.

In retrospect, however, I shouldn’t really be surprised because I’ve heard enough of the violinist’s playing in previous recordings to know how talented and accomplished a player he is. I have no choice but to give Monteiro and Santos’s latest album my strongest recommendation for compelling performances in Elgar, Debussy, Barbosa, and most of all Ravel.”  

Although an eclectic repertoire, Monteiro and Santos have been able to put a personal stamp on these works, which stand out for their unquestionable classical spirit, both in the clear and precise melodies and in the transparent rhythms and harmonic structures, perfectly woven. We can say that Bruno Monteiro, in his recordings (see reviews I, II and III), has been able to harmonize the path traced by the great names of violin literature, always looking for the most notorious currents of twentieth century music.

Within the world of the violin, Elgar left three important scores in the field of chamber music, of which the least known is the Sonata for violin and piano in E minor, op. 82. Elgar's lyrical sense emerges from the calm ocean that is this sonata. On the other hand, Debussy's health was extremely compromised during the composition of the Sonata for violin and piano in G minor, a work of chromaticisms that create an evanescent atmosphere.

The composer Luiz Barbosa, who was born in Lisbon in 1887 and died in the same city in 1952, was one of the great Portuguese violinists of the past. His only known work, the Romance for violin and piano, a delightful piece, remains very famous in Portugal.

Ivan Moody was born in London in 1964. Moody studied musicology and theology at the universities of London, Joensuu and York. Ascent, for violin and piano, is a sentimental and very beautiful work, which in this version has its world premiere.

Ravel composed the concert rhapsody Tzigane, for violin and piano, in April 1924. It is a piece of great virtuosity in which many instrumental possibilities are developed. The finale, in perpetuum mobile, allows the violin to reach a virtuoso fury of a gypsy character.”

Last Saturday, the Municipal Theater of Matosinhos Constantino Nery was the stage for an exciting violin and piano concert, starring Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos. The musicians performed works by Henri Vieuxtemps, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Eugène Ysaÿe, taking the audience on a musical journey full of emotion and virtuosity. Bruno Monteiro, internationally recognized as one of the main Portuguese violinists today, has led an intense concert activity, performing in the most prestigious concert halls in Portugal and across borders. For more than two decades, he has captivated audiences with his masterful interpretations and unparalleled talent."

Link: https://breves.pt/noticia/matosinhos-concerto-de-violino-e-piano-no-teatro-municipal-de-matosinhos

“The trio of Portuguese instrumentalists responds with bravura to the challenge (…). Santos and Monteiro recreate here a beautiful version of the work (Sonata) and the recording ends with a recommended instrumental reading of a charming dance taken from “The Dead City”.”

This new album, Music for Violin, Cello and Piano, includes pieces written at the ages of thirteen and sixteen by the prodigious Austrian composer and conductor Erich Wolfgang Korngold, whose musical career was stifled by the rise of Nazism. Born in Moravia, he taught composition in Austria, and from there he was exiled to the United States of America, where he achieved great fame as a film composer. He received two Academy Awards for his soundtracks to The Adventures of Robin Hood (M. Curtiz and W. Keighley, 1938) and The Seahawk (M. Curtiz, 1940).

Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha and João Paulo Santos, with whom he has been performing for over twenty years, remark on Korngold's style, with romantic reminiscences.

They begin with the Trio for piano, violin and cello in D major, op. 1, dedicated to his father, the famous music critic Julius Korngold. The composer's poetic vein is reflected in this work. The second movement, the Scherzo, revolves around rhythmic and harmonic variations, including a waltz-like section, probably influenced by Austrian dance.

The second work is the Sonata for violin and piano in G major, op. 6, by Korngold, a piece full of lyricism, great technical difficulties and some surprising syncopated ninths. The virtuosity of the two musicians becomes very evident when interpreting the shrill piano chords and violin pizzicato´s.

Monteiro and Santos perform the disc's final work, the enchanting Tanzlied des Pierrot ('Pierrot's Dance Song'), a piece transcribed from the opera Die Tote Stadt ('The Dead City'), op. 12. Korngold and his father collaborated on the libretto; we remember that Julius Korngold signed with the pseudonym Paul Schott.

Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha and João Paulo Santos are musicians with a refined sensibility who, rather than innovating, rediscover Korngold's restless language, with a high-flying musical demand.”

"Viennese composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, born in 1897, was a precocious talent prodigy spotted by his father, the important Vienna music critic Julius. Until then, happy coincidence. It turns out that the then all-powerful critic of the Neue Freie Presse newspaper used all tricks and lobbies to build his son's success. The boy, who was once baptized as a new Mozart by his father, who added a “Wolfgang” to his name, has dealt with suspicion his entire life. And for several reasons.

The first was this, the father's influence peddling. This week's CD, by the excellent duo of Portuguese musicians Bruno Monteiro, on violin, and João Paulo Santos on piano, has as its most important piece the youthful trio no. 1 for violin, piano and cello, performed here by Miguel Rocha.

The boy still studied with Zemlinsky, and the trio was so consistent that it was suggested in Viennese gossip that the teacher and his father had helped him. None of this appears to have happened. But the rumor remained. Especially when Julius used his prestige to debut the 13-year-old boy's trio in Vienna at the anniversary of The Merke newspaper.

But the music is the most important thing. And in fact this trio surpasses, by far, in terms of quality, a similar chamber work composed by Richard Strauss at the same age. Until he took refuge in the United States in the 1930s, Wolfgang established himself as the second most performed composer in Europe – right behind Richard Strauss, who, imagine, made waves first with his symphonic poems and then with his operas.

Once in Los Angeles, he quickly became Hollywood's soundtrack king. In short: he didn't need any push."

“Written at 13, Korngold’s vivacious, harmonically adventurous Op. 1 Trio needs no special ‘juvenilia’ pleading. The Violin Sonata, from the grand old age of 16, captivates from its ambitious, symphonic opening onwards. ”

Something of a prodigy himself, Monteiro, one of Portugal's leading classical music exports, performed his first public recitals at thirteen and fourteen, thereafter studied in New York and Chicago, and in the decades since has appeared on concert stages throughout the world. For more than twenty years he has performed with his recital partner Santos, who accompanies the violinist on this latest recording. Monteiro has issued more than a dozen albums, which have featured works by Stravinsky, Ravel, Chausson, Szymanowski, Schulhoff, and others. Despite the marquee-level status of some of the composers whose works he's performed, Monteiro often gravitates to ones less familiar to a general audience and has helped direct attention to their often underappreciated efforts.

Consistent with the programming design of previous releases, the Korngold set presents a trio work alongside duo pieces, one for violin and piano and the other cello and piano. Initiating the album is his Piano Trio in D major, Op. 1, written when he was a mere thirteen years old. What makes it even more impressive, however, are the maturity and sophistication shown by the writing throughout the half-hour work. The allegro with which it begins endears for its romantic expressiveness and the arresting entwining of the strings' patterns. With Santos providing able and attentive support, Monteiro and Rocha engage in a passionate pas de deux that's wholly engaging. The scherzo that follows is playful and flirts with waltz rhythms, but its eight-minute duration allows for many another stylistic direction too. That aforesaid maturity is perhaps most noticeably evident in the “Larghetto,” its music remarkably poignant considering that it was written by someone so young. The finale is, true to form, marked by vitality and a generally radiant, uplifting tone though a wry gesture emerges as it nears its end.

Three years separate the writing of the opening selection and the Violin Sonata in G major, Op. 6, which premiered in Berlin in October 1913. Coupling Monteiro and Santos, the work reflects, as expected, further development in the refinement of Korngold's writing. That's dramatically shown in the harmonic adventurousness of the opening two movements and the modulations they progress through over the course of their combined twenty-four minutes. Monteiro shines throughout the scherzo in the rapid scale leaps he's called upon to execute, but his expressive voicings in the atmospheric trio section are as memorable. The violinist himself proposes that the adagio movement, the work's third, is “clearly influenced” by Richard Strauss and Mahler, and certainly its chromatic harmonies and lyrical coda indicate such an argument could credibly be made.

Based on a baritone solo aria from the opera Die Tote Stadt, Op. 12 (The Dead City), Tanzlied des Pierrot concludes the release strongly with a hushed, salon-styled setting that crowns a Debussy-esque intro with a lovely, heartfelt performance by Rocha. In terms of production quality, the recording captures the performances effectively, the strings in particular. An audible degree of echo shadows the piano, however, suggesting that the microphone might have been positioned closer to prevent the instrument from sounding so distant. That disconcerting detail aside, the recording earns its recommendation, with Monteiro and company doing their part to remind us that Korngold, as formidable a soundtrack composer as he was, was much else besides."

Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro, together with cellist Miguel Rocha and his regular pianist João Paulo Santos, paid tribute to the composer in a recording with the Belgian label Et'cetera, today his trusted house. Rightly so, because the recording is once again a gem. Never change a winning team.

The album begins with the trio for piano, violin and cello in D major, opus 1. This is therefore one of the youngest works by the then promising composer. An immediate blow. In fact, it was dedicated to his father Julius Korngold, who was a well-known music critic. You can hear the determination with which the work was written, but also performed. A job that knows what it wants. Beautiful contrasting themes guarantee an explosive result. The richness behind Korngold's work can be seen from the first note. The transitions to the Scherzo, followed by the almost danceable intermezzo and the calmer larghetto, proceed very naturally, as if this music had always existed and infiltrated Korngold's brain from a higher level. With this rich fantasy, you have to start loving this composer if you didn't already know him.

So the Violin Sonata in G Major opus 6 once again meets expectations. Another great gem, written by Korngold, just sixteen years old. A demanding piece, but everything sounds so logical, so natural, evident in all its complexity. An intense piece where you can barely contain yourself with all the emotion and feel your heart rate increasing. The influences of Strauss and Mahler are clearly audible.

The CD ends with a charming piece of salon music, Tanzlied des Pierrot from the opera Die Tote Stadt, whose libretto Korngold wrote together with his father under the pseudonym Paul Schott. A beautiful deep encore on cello and piano, on this highly enjoyable CD."

"After the previous CD with works by Chausson and Ysaÿe, the musicians playing as a trio or duo now present their view on Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

It remains that already in the trio the musicians show passion and present a vital interpretation of the first movement. And this invested energy is certainly a plus. In the following Scherzo the vitality and with the waltz part the closeness to the music of Austria becomes clear. The three musicians offer rather a robust picture of this type of dance. In the Trio – Larghetto it is particularly noticeable that the technique has captured the musicians all with equal weight. Thus everyone becomes audible and no one sits in the acoustic shadow. In the finale, there is again no stinginess with energy, sometimes a bit over-pointed.

The opening movement of the violin sonata sounds round and pleasing. The Scherzo in second place offers the violin part distinct chains of notes, while later more lyrical passages are heard. In the Adagio, influenced by Strauss and Mahler but written with Korngold’s unique musical language, rows of chromatic harmonies are explored. Bruno Monteiro succeeds in this in a carefully crafted manner. The final movement again closes the work with intensely distinctive shaping by the performers.

In the dance song of Pierrot from the opera « The Dead City », cellist Miguel Rocha lets his skills be heard. With sonorous fine sound he offers an engaging interpretation of this salon piece and can therefore leave a very good impression.

The secure, well-organized and sensitive playing of pianist João Paulo Santos, which is attuned to the partners, may be mentioned as a further positive aspect."

The Larghetto [3] has great subtlety of intonation, expressed as in a dream (violin supple and suave at the same time). And the flexibility as well as the voluptuousness of the final sequence - notes scattered from the airy piano - are close to the vaporous dreamlike atmosphere of the opera Die Tote Stadt.

Concerned with contrasts, Korngold architectures his Finale (allegro molto e energico / 4) with an asperity, a sort of more characterized hoarseness less seductive than beforehand, with accents of pure dreamy fantasy: volubility mirrored with the fanciful lightness and capriciousness of the first Allegro con espressione, as evidenced by the beginnings of waltzes interspersed in an over-expressive, even parodic sequence, in the spirit ideally assimilated here again of the Straussian caprice (the fanciful and brilliant neo-baroque Richard Strauss of Ariane auf Naxos and the French neo-baroque Suite from Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme after Lully). The assertive Viennese musicians play and delight in this labyrinth of rhythms and crossed influences.

Virtuoso, intoxicated eclecticism of the young Erich Wolfgang Korngold

Bruno Monteiro adds to the richness of this exciting program a mature work [composed at 16!] which still bears the attachment to this Viennese ideal, both carefree and stylistically eclectic: the sublime Sonata for violin and piano.

The “Ben moderato” [5] highlights the lunar volubility of the violin, so close to singing, but a song modeled on speech and free, fanciful thought, which rocks and dreams… and ends very high in the sky enchanted and intoxicated high notes as the enchanter KORNGOLD knows how to distill them. Piano and violin acutely express its great suggestive and emotional force.

The Adagio [7] is wild tenderness, softness, measured abandon, play on modulations and vaporous harmonic passages, ecstatic inebriation at the confines of tonality, playing between dream and nightmare but in accuracy without softness (as it is noted “mit tiefer empfindung” / with deep sensitivity).

In the Finale: Allegretto [8] – the character of happy carefreeness runs through the entire last movement (con grazia), but also a feeling of happy plenitude, as if intoxicated here again, combining the whimsical and the capricious as in the spirit of a movement constructed like a fantasy – the violin part is close to the voice, a continuous and diaphanous song, while the piano nestles in the folds and folds of preserved, secret resentments, never really expressed. This dreamlike mist, this floating as if bewitched, make up the charm of a piece which seems at first listen, diffuse and uncertain, ultimately revealing an extremely well constructed emotional charge of which it is the violin line which holds the control and the flow from one end to the other.

In addition, the performers play Pierrot's Tanzlied, an extract from the opera Die Tote Stadt for cello and piano: the two performers express its suave fragility, like the delicate outpouring of a dream that evaporates.

This program aptly underlines the precocious genius and virtuoso complexity of a Viennese composer of infinite seduction."

““He (Monteiro) is a superb violinist, exhibiting flawless technique, beautiful tone, and musicianship of the highest order. Bruno Monteiro, Miguel Rocha, and João Paulo Santos perform miracles in the playing of them. I doubt that you’ll find them better presented than they are here. ”

“Although the classical music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) has undergone something of a revival in recent years, it remains comparatively obscure, possibly because he is known primarily for the film scores he created in the United States after fleeing Europe during the Nazi era. Interestingly, Korngold in his early career was something of a prodigy, and even his first few compositions have a great deal to recommend them – as is made abundantly clear in a very well-played new CD from Et’cetera Records. The disc opens with Korngold’s first published work and his only piano trio – a work that is something of a marvel, considering the fact that he completed it when he was only 13. The trio was written when Korngold was studying with Alexander Zemlinsky, and it contains both late-Romantic intensity and high levels of lyricism. It also has some clever compositional elements, notably an almost circular structure, with the work’s opening theme repeated and reworked at the conclusion of the finale. Although it is easy to hear echoes of Brahms and Richard Strauss in the music, there is nothing overtly imitative in it, and its harmonic language is right in line with what would be expected for its time period (1909-10). As a whole, this is a strongly accented, atmospheric work created with compositional skill far beyond its composer’s chronological age. And although the style is scarcely distinctive, the stretching of tonality and expressive intensity of the music place it squarely at the end of the Romantic era and show that even in his earliest music, Korngold had a knack for mixing emotive sensitivity with a high degree of drama – a combination that would stand him in good stead in his much later film works. The performance by João Paulo Santos, Bruno Monteiro and Miguel Rocha is first-rate, allowing the music to flow naturally throughout and explore the full emotional range that Korngold put into it, which is considerable even when it sounds somewhat formulaic in the Larghetto third movement. And Korngold matured quite rapidly from a compositional point of view, as is clear from his Sonata for Violin and Piano, written when he was all of 16. Larger-scale than the Piano Trio, this 40-minute sonata strives constantly to burst the bounds within which Korngold created it. Monteiro and Santos tackle the work’s very considerable technical demands with consummate skill, allowing its frequent contrasts of lyricism and intensity to produce the clear and sometimes jarring effects for which Korngold strove – precursors in a way to the quick mood shifts he was later so adept at producing for films. The free-range emotional elements here flow more naturally than in the Piano Trio, although the musical language itself is somewhat more acerbic. The sonata’s second movement, an insistent Scherzo, contains an unusually beautiful central Trio, and the third-movement Adagio is also packed with sincerity despite a high level of chromaticism reminiscent of Mahler and, again, Richard Strauss. The variation-form finale provides the only leavening in a work that is foundationally highly serious: there are tidbits of lightness here and there that help relieve the otherwise persistent weightiness of the sonata, and the gentle conclusion brings with it a sense of calm that is otherwise largely absent from a work of considerable power. The disc concludes, as an encore, with an excerpt from Korngold’s third and best-known opera, Die tote Stadt, a dark psychological work whose rather lurid plot is nowhere reflected in the sweet and warm cello-and-piano version of Tanzlied des Pierrot, played by Rocha and Santos with considerable delicacy and charm. As a whole, this CD stands as testimony to Korngold’s earlier music (which includes Die tote Stadt, at whose première the composer was 23) and an excellent introduction, for listeners who know Korngold only as a film composer, to some of his substantial contributions to 20th-century chamber music.”

 “This is a very fine issue of superb chamber music from the Belle Epoque period, and one cannot imagine it being better played or recorded. If I begin with the sound quality, it is only because obtaining a correct, genuinely musical, record ed balance between all three instruments is not easily achieved, but the result here border on demonstration standard. (…) Bruno Monteiro and his companions have the style of this period literally at their fingertips, and the whole presentation is admirable.”

*****

‍“The Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro and the pianist Joao Paulo Santos turn to a little played repertoire, the chamber music of Igor Stravinsky. And yet, in this programme, we are also very close to the composer’s ballet music.

The Suite Italienne uses mainly themes from the ballet Pulcinella, which in turn goes back to Pergolesi, just as Le Baiser de la Fée refers to Tchaikovsky.

At the same time, the works have a reference to Samuel Dushkin, a violinist who had ordered a Violin Concerto from Stravinsky, which the composer was reluctant to accept because he did not really feel at home with the genre. However, over lunch together, the two of them came to an agreement. Stravinsky wrote not only his Violin Concerto for Dushkin, but also the Duo Concertant. And Dushkin assisted him with the transcription of the music from the ballets, because, after the success of the Violin Concerto, Stravinsky wanted to tour with his friend Samuel with music for violin and piano. The tour consisted of concerts in Königsberg, Ostrava, Hamburg, Paris, Budapest, Milan, Turin, Rome and other cities.

In the transcribed ballet music Bruno Monteiro shows that the music is actually far from the orchestral original and probably closer to what Stravinsky may have had in mind when composing at the piano. The violinist’s playing is immensely imaginative and rhythmically precise, so that the moods are worked out very sharply. Especially when it comes to irony or burlesque, the performance is very characteristic and spicy. The violinist’s sharp and agile playing is a perfect match for this repertoire, just as his rhythmic accuracy makes the sequence of contrasts coherent.

The Duo Concertant is de facto a highly original five-movement sonata, of which Stravinsky said that he tried to create « a lyrical work of musical condensation ». Nevertheless, there are plenty of sharp interactions in this masterpiece, which Monteiro plays expressively. After the ravishing gigue he lets the slow Dithyrambe intensively blossom in all its austere beauty.

With technically and expressively outstanding performances and a good sound recording, this Etcetera production is highly recommendable."

*****

‍“Were it not for the model that Mozart established as a 'wunderkind' composer, it would be hard to imagine that a teenager could create music of great intensity and complexity. Nevertheless, this is the legacy that Guillaume Lekeu left in the late 19th century. Only 24 years when he died in 1894, Lekeu composed a striking series of chamber music works, and 2 of them are put on full display in this new Brilliant Classics recording. Featuring a trio of excellent Portugese musicians, the program sizzles with powerfully extroverted passages, all the while projecting an atmosphere of seriousness, even sadness.
This is gorgeous music, and I definitely recommend the disk to all chamber music devotees."

He proclaimed that the absolute art revolution was against agreed sound and rhythm. Between the bitter lines, dances and more traditional expressivity (the '' Tranquilo '' here in the first sonata), in which mostly feels a prolonged freshness, renewal almost in sight, a kind of inspired perpetuum mobile. Not to mention that he was a friend of Alban Berg (the sounds he sometimes resembles, as in this second sonata), he never resorted to serialism.

And always, a trip to Bach (the title is already present in the beautiful Andante of the second sonata and sonata for solo violin) socialist realism, dissonances, modal tone and quarter, but in a very free approach. Truly inspiring music, invigorating, gaining in depth by repeated listening, perfectly served by our two artists."

The sound is good. At first I thought it a little over-bright, but with repeated listening I came to the conclusion that it was Bruno Monteiro’s tone and not the recording. The accompanying booklet notes are quite detailed and informative, concentrating on the music rather than the composer. They make a good introduction to these works."

The program contains four works: one suite for violin and piano, two sonatas for violin and piano, and one sonata for solo violin. The thing you have to remember, though, is that Schulhoff began composing at about the time the modern era of music began, and while he is clearly avant-garde, innovative, and experimental for his day, he also has one foot firmly planted in the melodies and harmonies of the older Romantic generation. So his music is a kind of fascinating amalgam of the old and the new.

Anyway, Monteiro has arranged the order of the program in chronological order, starting with the five-movement suite, dating from 1911. It has a generally positive and happy outlook, with the violinist delighting in its almost-classical demeanor. Monteiro's tone is always clean, golden, and vibrant, qualities he maintains throughout the program. The interior minuet and waltz segments appear most adventurous, yet they never become objectionable in their eccentricities. The final movement ends the piece with something originally titled "Dance of the Little Devils," and it's charming in its impish delights, at least the way Monteiro and Santos play it.
The next three items are more overtly "modern," being somewhat less harmonious or melodic. The first sonata has more starts and stops to it, with more contrasting sections and a more emphatic rhythmic drive. Nevertheless, for all of its oddities it comes over with an appealingly pensive mood under the guidance of Monteiro and Santos.

In the solo violin work Monteiro not only gets to show off his more virtuosic talents, he gets to display his knowledge and feeling for the jazz idioms Schulhoff adopted. Finally, in the second sonata we hear a more dance-like feeling from the composer, probably from his embracing more of the native folk elements of his country. Don't expect Dvorak, but you get the idea. It begins briskly, energetically, followed by a highly expressive slow movement and returning in the final segments to some of the same themes with which the music started. Again, Monteiro and Santos make a splendid team, keeping the drama of the piece moving forward with a pulsating, scintillating enchantment.

Producer Bruno Monteiro and engineer and editor Jose Fortes recorded the album at Igreja da Cartuxa, Caxias, Portugal in April 2016. The church makes an excellent setting for the musicians, the sound taking on a touch of hall resonance without in any way affecting the overall transparency of the instruments. We get clarity and dynamic impact aplenty, plus a realistic separation of players, making the listening both pleasurable and lifelike."

"Bruno Monteiro continues to travel to the back roads of the violin chamber repertoire between centuries. After his Erwin Schulhoff CD, this time he stops in Karol Szymanowski, the brilliant Polish composer unclassifiable, who would virtually share seat with Janácek, Scriabin, Martinu or Enescu, among others, as this period favored the flowering of free spirits against the current. This recording shows all his work for violin and piano, which includes small pieces such as Roxana of King Roger's aria (fundamental opera of the 20th century), a dance drawn from the Harnasie ballet or the Dance Sauvage, among others, with works of greater substance such as the early Sonata Op. 9 (1904), of Franckian resonances, and, especially, Mythes Op. 30 (1915), one of his masterpieces, a "Greek" triptych in which he describes the myths with a new writing technique for the violin. The profund reading of the Portuguese violinist, with his usual pianist Joao Paulo Santos, explains and clarifies very well the pentatonism, the almost dodecaphonic harmony or the intervals in the style of Alois Hába. There was already a great recording of this music by Ibragimova and Tiberghien (Hyperion), which is added by this one on equal intentions to consolidate, for music, interpretation and the need to know better the great Szymanowski."

"…certainly highly expressive, as is the playing by the excellent artist Bruno Monteiro and his gifted pianist partner.
This collection is thoughtfully played in chronological order, thereby enabling us to follow the composer’s evolution. The very first work here, the Sonatina No 1, is a truly original gem, and every one of these pieces, whether they be for violin and piano or for solo violin, is well worth the time and attention of the enquiring music lover.
The recording is admirably bright and vivid and the whole presentation is another feather in the crowded international Naxos cap."

"Fernando Lopes-Graça (1906-1994) is often treated as an agent involved in obscure historical processes. But, same as to many others, all that happened to him was the Estado Novo *, which granted him with an arrest and seizure order, censored his writings and sayings, criminalised the profession, mobilised the spirit, rendered life illegal and, to some extent, endangered posterity. Therefore, some see him through the light of Manicheism. He who knows it well is Bruno Monteiro, who, in declarations to Expresso**, thus synthetizes the question: “The duality does undoubtedly exist. But it is that what renders [this] music so interesting. Lopes-Graça, with his political, social, musical and aesthetical convictions is, in the end, human. That was our main concern: to highlight [his] human side.”
*Translator Note: Estado Novo, or the Second Republic, was the corporatist authoritarian regime installed in Portugal in 1933. It was greatly inspired by conservative and authoritarian ideologies, developed by António de Oliveira Salazar, ruler of Portugal from 1932 to 1968.
**Translator Note: Expresso is the flagship publication of the Group Impresa, and was founded by Francisco Pinto Balsemão in 1973. A weekly newspaper, it incorporates various supplements, covering general news, business, sports, international news, entertainment, society, a magazine, recruitment and real estate classified supplements.
Collecting this important integral which pervades decades of creation – starting from a pair of expressive Sonatinas, op. 10 and 11 which date back to the 30s and finishing in the somewhat morbid “Adágio Doloroso e Fantasia”, Op. 242, of the late 80s -, Monteiro and João Paulo Santos understood that the strongest of compromises by the composer soon strutted in the definition of intellectual responsibility.
For example, in 1948 (the year of the official entry of Lopes-Graça in the PCP***), in Portugal, being a communist would surely be an opportunity of sharing a common dignity, but Lopes-Graça never did ignore that, in music, ideology is like those presences in our lives whose company in wrong doses poisons, whereas in the inverse ones, intoxicates. Specifically in his chamber music dimension, here, although you may identify the impotence of shape, there is never the glimpse of vulgarity in content. With yet another feature – perhaps more vain or rancorous or exaggeratedly underlining miasmas and asymmetries – that which is within this CD would absolutely slide on to a
***Translator Note: The Partido Comunista Português is the Portuguese Communist Party
prison from which one might not return. The violinist would say that the material itself does forbid linear readings: “All works are relatively short, but all [are] completely contrasting. Even within the same work, all movements are different among themselves. There is no continuity. We are forced to permanently change our emotions and stay alert, for the character, the speed, the interior structure are constantly changing.” This statement suffices to understand that this patrimony is not captivated by just any system. In fact, in no time will it definitely fixate, which presupposes a cultural identity so volatile, a virtuosity which does not only depend on the whims of invention, sounds provocatively hanging on the corners of tone. Monteiro and João Paulo are aware that democracy may follow dictatorship, freedom repression and there will always be someone who will believe that one hell was traded by another. A recording such as this deviates the thought from such a dark idea."

"Both works here are wonderfully well performed, and finely recorded with a natural balance that is impressive". (Saint-Saens/Strauss Violin Sonatas)."