Monteiro and Santos play the two movements with conviction and panache and they make the music seem much simpler than it really is. Communication between them is always instantaneous…They play the tricky rhythms of the first part of the second movement with consummate style. You want to look for tiny magical creatures dancing on the ceiling when you listen to it. Then comes the more difficult section, but it does not bother these musicians in the least. They never slow down and they toss it off as gingerly as a simple etude. Santos has wonderful articulation and manages to keep each note separate no matter how fast he plays. Monteiro has burnished golden tones and he imparts a great deal of emotional warmth in his playing. © 2013 Fanfare

The pair of iconic Romantic-era works featured on this disc are like ships passing in the night: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano in D minor, Op. 75, was written in 1885 at the French composer’s creative peak; while Richard Strauss’ Sonata for violin and piano in E-flat major, Op. 18, composed between 1887 and 1888, is one of the German composer’s earliest, youthful pieces. In the hands of the talented Portuguese violinist Bruno Monteiro, accompanied by the equally gifted pianist Joao Paulo Santos, they receive an emotionally sensitive, richly balanced, and lyrically reading that captures all the elegance, storminess, wistfulness, and power found in these broadly painted chamber works. Monteiro brings a warm, beautiful, singing tone to these recordings and casts a radiant glow over complex emotions expressed in these works. © Strings Magazine

This new coupling by Bruno Monteiro and João Paulo Santos of Strauss’s Violin Sonata with the D minor work by Saint-Saëns makes a fascinating comparison with the Tasmin Little/Piers Lane coupling of the Strauss with Respighi, so different in its forward impulse…Monteiro’s approach, so full of verve and boldness, echoed by his pianist, and tending to sweep listeners off their feet.

Saint-Saëns’s First Violin Sonata was a complete surprise to me—as played here, quite unlike the piano concertos. In his day, Saint-Saëns was regarded as France’s greatest composer; and listening to this two-movement sonata, with its powerful, thrustful outer sections, one can understand why, and can appreciate why the composer’s compatriots were bowled over by such compulsive writing. © 2013 Gramophone Read complete review on Gramophone