Carolyn Huebl and Mark Wait, both from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, here present all three of the composer’s numbered sonatas for violin and piano along with the earliest one from 1955. They have the characteristics of great reflection, tightness, economy, though of a restrained and bare lyricism; of variety and a mix of moods from the sombre to the almost jaunty and jazzily lighthearted (the fourth movement of No. 1 [tr.4], for example). Indeed, together with the pair’s extreme technical yet unobtrusive virtuosity, this faculty of being at home in all Schnittke’s many idioms is one of this excellent CD’s strongest points.

Equally remarkable is the extent to which Huebl throws herself into the essence of Schnittke’s string writing. Almost all of his violin sonata writing was directly inspired by the work—and hence the style—of Mark Lubotsky and Gidon Kremer with their acerbic and understated tautness. To Wait’s unretiring yet sensitive pianism, Huebl brings an equally demonstrative certainty. She never over-layers Schnittke’s sonorities; they are designed to be as spare in sound as his themes are meant to prick rather than caress.

The Sonata No. 1 dates from 1963; it was in the following year that Lubotsky gave the première. It makes use of serial techniques and is generally springily experimental. Significant among its characteristics—and equally well brought out by these two fine soloists—is the relationship between piano and violin: prompting, antagonising, supporting, echoing and so on. Huebl and Wait explore these seamlessly and add to the momentum of the sonata greatly by respecting Schnittke’s conception of the duality of these two instruments.

Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 2 Quasi una Sonata was written just five years later, in 1968. The longest single work on the CD at nearly 23 minutes, it’s one of the composer’s best well-known and most often performed pieces with much more angularity—anger even—than the others here. Yet, again, Huebl and Wait have rightly preferred to accentuate the music’s essence over its surface. There are the glissandi, mordent harmonics and wistful rhythmic ambiguities—all characteristic of Schnittke. We also hear the gestures that may or may not be quotations—they’re certainly evocative—and the dissonant intervals and repetitive chords—famously those for piano toward the end of the piece. The players here are full of life, not labour: very pleasing performances. They evoke the emotion, they don’t ‘demonstrate’ it.

Other than the first (unnumbered) sonata from 1955, these are certainly on the surface of things firmly in a modernist tradition. They nevertheless bear the individual Schnittke watermark: often utilizing twelve-tone-serial-and-beyond techniques but in a very personal way, freely bending them toward his own harmonic and rhythmically lively ends while culling and synthesizing the full spectrum of concert music styles from the Baroque to the present, all in ways that are distinctly Schnittkian in their strikingly inventive thematic idiosyncrasies.

The violin sonatas are excellently representative Schnittke. The 1955 work a fascinating look at his early beginnings, the first through third sonatas masterpieces of 20th century chamber arts. Ms Huebl and Mr Wait do an excellent job bringing out the nuances of these very complex and vital works. The sound is very good as well. It’s a treasure trove for an Schnittke enthusiast; it also serves as a good introduction to his music for anyone unfamiliar with it. At the Naxos price the disk is especially attractive!

Aspects of that work, as led by the piano and lead violin, feed into his violin sonatas, all of which, including the unpublished-in-Schnittke’s-lifetime Violin Sonata of 1954–5, are presented here. Echoes of this early work, defined by a mournful opening and subsequent economical dialogue between the instruments, returns in his final sonata. Written in his 60s after a number of strokes, Schnittke here is spare in his language, suggesting more than revealing, yet packing great emotion into such subtle gestures. Sonatas 1 and 2, from 1964 and 1968 respectively, are more active and dynamic, dipping occasionally into tonality only to disrupt it with jagged serial outbursts. This wonderful collection is an excellent entry point into Schnittke’s endlessly fascinating musical world.