Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 5 'Spring', 9 'Kreutzer' & 3
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LUDWIG van BEETHOVEN
Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 5 'Spring', 9 'Kreutzer' & 3
Alena Baeva (violin) Vadym Kholodenko (piano)
[ Alpha Classics / CD ]
Release Date: Friday 27 February 2026
This item is only available to us via Special Order. We should be able to get it to you in 3 - 6 weeks from when you order it.
Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko are starting their recording of Beethoven's complete sonatas for violin and piano. Alena is recognised as a versatile violinist with a magnetic presence and now performs with the greatest orchestras and conductors, while Vadym has been one of the most impressive pianists of his generation since winning the gold medal at the 2013 Van Cliburn Competition. For more than ten years, they have formed a close-knit and highly sought-after duo (both on and off stage). The three sonatas featured on this recording (Op. 12 No. 3, Op. 24 "Spring" and Op. 47 "Kreutzer") were composed between 1797 and 1803, a period that brought Beethoven both his first recognition on the European stage and the first signs of his deafness... Baeva and Kholodenko used the 2020 edition by Bärenreiter and carried out in-depth research into their interpretative choices: phrasing, ornamentation and tempi are the result of this research and of sources from the period.
"'Possessing a passionate musical curiosity,' says her website, 'Alena Baeva holds a vast active repertoire.' This is borne out by her presence on recordings: music by the likes of Bacewicz, Karłowicz and Silvestrov shares shelf-space with Wieniawski on gut strings and the original 1844 version of Mendelssohn's Concerto.
It's a curiosity that is abundantly evident on the second album to emerge from her long-term contract with Alpha Classics (after 'Fantasy' - 3/24). There can barely be any music more central to the repertoire than Beethoven's fiddle sonatas but from the very opening of the Spring Sonata Baeva is very much her own woman. The tone she draws from her 'ex-William Kroll' Guarneri del Gesù of 1738 is lithe and slender rather than full-bodied, but not without the glint of an abrasive edge when she digs into the string. Tempos never linger, contributing to a mesmerically shaded reading: vernal this Spring may be but the listener is ever aware of the likelihood of a sudden storm that blows away as swiftly as it arrived. Here and in the Kreutzer, rubato is generous but never seems gratuitous, and Vadym Kholodenko, her high-class piano partner, is with her every step of the way, mirroring and matching her precipitous outbursts or subito drops to a ghostly pianissimo. The central variations are rarely differentiated to such a degree as here, each with its own individual character. And the Spring's Scherzo - hardly substantial at the best of times - all but evaporates in the hearing of it." Gramophone Editor's Choice March 26
Tracks:
Violin Sonata No. 5 in F major, Op. 24 'Spring'
Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47 'Kreutzer'
Violin Sonata No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 12 No. 3
