The year the music died
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
1919 Coda: Janacek, Boulanger, Debussy, Elgar (Delphian)
*****
The title of this violin-piano recital requires some explanation. By 1919, two of the named composers were dead, and a third was worn out. Only Leos Janacek was firing on all cylinders — indeed, on more cylinders than he ever had before. If 1919 was a benchmark, it is not evident from their lifecycles. However, the year does mark an end-point for the war era and these sonatas exist in that immediate past, with no thought of present or future….
In Czech here.
In The Critic here.
1919 also marked the creation of three great sonatas for viola– the Suite for Viola and Piano by Ernest Bloch, Rebecca Clarke’s Viola Sonata, and Hindemith’s Viola Sonata, Op. 11 No. 4.