Augustin Dumay and Maria Pires in Beethoven

The ten sonatas Beethoven wrote for violin and piano are pretty well all of a high standard, with many lovely slow movements. They are also true duo sonatas, with neither violin nor piano in a star or dominant role. They demand two well matched (and well recorded) performers. I have no less than eleven complete sets of the sonatas, from artists as varied as Kristof Barati and Klara Würz, Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley, Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov, Arthur Grumiaux and Clara Haskil, Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace, Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien, Fritz Kreisler and Franz Rupp … and a few others. The works are not particularly difficult to play technically, but for me the essential quality is balance; balance between the stature of the two artists involved, balance in the sound so that, even when the violin is playing pianissimo, it can be heard against the more dominant sound of the piano. Too many modern recordings give the piano undue prominence, which means one often struggles to hear what the poor violinist is playing.

The latest set of the ten sonatas (33 movements in all) to hit my shelves features Augustin Dumay and Maria Pires, recorded sometime in the 1990s and, from the sound, on a number of different occasions in different venues. The sound quality varies between good, and very good, but you can always hear what the violin is playing, even against a strong piano background.

Opus 30 No.3 finds the pair in a somewhat more aggressive mood, with some strong accents – particularly in the first movement. Was this Beethoven having a bad-mood day, or Pires and Dumay? The variation slow movement of the Kreutzer sonata finds the pair at their most typical and most impressive; true duo playing by two friends both of whom are first class musicians. No one does it better than this. Opus 96, the lone violin and piano sonata of later Beethoven, gets a lovely performance here. This set goes right into my top three (the other two depend on my current mood and taste). Compared with the competitive violinists listed above, Dumay is well up with the best, with an appealing sweet tone. Pires, however, is equalled only by Haskil, both of whom take to Beethoven (as also to Mozart) like ducks to water.