Frank Peter Zimmermann performs excerpts from Béla Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin, a central work in the twentieth-century literature for solo violin. Composed in 1944, only a year before Bartók’s death, it is a deeply personal statement which fuses the overall layout of Bach’s solo violin sonatas with Hungarian folk tradition. The results are as fascinating to the listener as they are challenging to the performer.
The Sonata in its entirety can be heard on the BIS album released in November 2020, where the Sonata is coupled with Bohuslav Martinů’s Violin Concertos No. 1 and 2, where Zimmermann is partnered by Bamberger Symphoniker under the orchestra’s chief conductor Jakub Hrůša, one of the leading Martinů conductors of today.