A neglected figure is brought into a well-deserved limelight
The Strad Issue: December 2024
Description: A neglected figure is brought into a well-deserved limelight
Musicians: Emeline Pierre Larsen (violin) Sabine Weyer (piano)
Works: Mayer: Violin Sonatas: in D major, in E flat major, in F major
Catalogue number: CPO 555602-2
The stature of Emilie Mayer is slowly coming into focus on the crowded stage of 19th-century Germany. This trio of violin sonatas confirms that she deserves better than the casual verdict of ‘another contemporary of Brahms’. In any case Mayer was busy writing symphonies while Brahms was still steeling himself for the task ahead. That no-one wanted to play them is no reflection on the symphonies, but on her gender. Frustrated by lack of performances, she returned to writing chamber music at some point in the mid-1860s, when at least two of these sonatas were probably composed.
‘Probably’ is the operative word. Reception of Mayer’s music has been compromised by the lack of a discernible shape to her career. In a perceptive booklet essay, Bert Hagels speculates that the E flat Sonata pre-dates the other two; perhaps so, but it’s the ace in the pack here. A striking curtain-raiser brings a shapely opening melody, followed by several others just as good, and a solid but novel four-movement form, with a Rondo replacing the usual Scherzo and a robust finale owing something of its darting energy to Beethoven’s op.30 no.3. The F major Sonata is almost in the same class, with an especially searching Adagio.
Emeline Pierre Larsen accordingly adopts a performance style that would fit Beethoven better than Brahms: light on vibrato, sometimes a touch dry on sustained notes, always bowing the quick movements with incisive vigour. Discreetly recessed in the studio mix, Sabine Weyer spreads accompanying chords with a sensitive nod to mid-19th-century style. Mayer’s five other extant sonatas would be more than welcome from the same source.
PETER QUANTRILL
No comments yet