Composer: Freda Swain
Performer: Timon Altwegg
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata Classics
Catalogue: TOCC0579
Release: 2022
Size: 1.16 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Sonata Saga
01. I. Misterioso
02. II. Lento tranquillo
03. III. Con molto energia
04. The Croon of the Sea
Piano Sonata No. 1 “The Skerries”
05. I. Vigoroso
06. II. Non troppo lento
07. III. Moderato misterioso
08. An English Idyll
Piano Sonata No. 2 in F-Sharp Minor
09. I. Toccata
10. II. Canzona pastorale
11. III. Interlude
12. IV. Pandean Rondo
13. The Red Flower
The English composer-pianist Freda Swain (1902–85) left a huge legacy of music that was largely unknown even while she was alive. Her compositions – hundreds of them, in a series of large boxes – found their way to the Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg, who begins his survey of her piano music with Swain’s three mighty sonatas. They are astonishing discoveries: big-boned, virtuosic pieces, full of wild energy, crossing from late Romanticism to a more modern idiom – from Rachmaninov to Bartók, so to speak – and with Bax’s fondness for Celtic seascapes and a hint of Debussyan Impressionism.