MARC BOUCHKOV / MAO FUJITA

Initially, all Beethoven’s violin sonatas place the piano first in their titles, bright No. 3’s opening Allegro con spirito feels especially full of the sorts of arpeggio piano flourishes heard in his piano concertos, and of rapid passagework that often feels more idiomatic to the piano than to the violin. C major serenity follows with the slow movement, featuring some surprise harmonic modulations towards its close, before a lively Rondo finale.

Sonata No. 4 in tense A minor dates from a few years later, in 1800. It opens on a momentum-filled Presto cast in six quavers to a bar, the close musical conversation spiced by syncopations and sudden accents, then ending unexpectedly on a whisper. The major-keyed Andante scherzoso, più allegretto feels like a cross between a scherzo and slow movement with its combination of grace and rhythmic caprice. Minor-tonality angst returns for the final Allegro molto, which equally eventually fades to a hushed close.

The three Opus 30 sonatas were written between 1801 and 1802, the year Beethoven wrote his famous Heiligenstadt Testament detailing both his suicidal despair and his artistic determination. Noble Sonata No. 6, the first of the set, balances a fragmentary first theme with a more songlike second one. Next comes a tender slow movement, before an increasingly inventive variation-form finale. The third of the set, No. 8 – described by violinist Joseph Szigeti as “conflictless perfection” – then begins with a sunnily racing Allegro assai, after which the central Tempo di Minuetto brings a softer warmth, with melancholic minor-keyed injections. The final Allegro vivace is then a complete contrast with its bubbling, bucolic theme and folky drones.

Beethoven was fast making his reputation as a virtuoso pianist and composer when he wrote his first, three-strong set of violin sonatas in Vienna between 1797 and 1798; and while all his violin sonatas place the piano first in their titles, bright No. 3’s opening Allegro con spirito feels especially full of the sorts of arpeggio piano flourishes heard in his piano concertos, and of rapid passagework that often feels more idiomatic to the piano than to the violin. C major serenity follows with the slow movement, featuring some surprise harmonic modulations towards its close, before a lively Rondo finale.