Germana Porcu Morano & Bruno Canino - Grieg: Violin Sonatas (2023)

A beloved trio of Romantic violin sonatas in the passionate and assured hands of an exciting Italian violinist near the start of her career: an auspicious debut on Brilliant Classics. Winner of the 30th edition of Michelangelo Abbado violin competition held in Milan in 2009, Germana Porcu Morano studied in Bergamo, and has gone on to win several other national and international prizes included a scholarship funded by Claudio Abbado. She has performed as a soloist and in chamber ensembles across Europe and in China. She is a member of the Paganini String Quartet, with plans afoot to record the completequartets by Paganini.

In the meanwhile, Porcu Morano has produced a gripping account of the three violin sonatas by Edvard Grieg in partnership with one of the great Italian musicians of his generation, Bruno Canino. The pianist brings decades of experience to bear on parts which, especially in the testing Third Sonata, demand a virtuosity beyond anything in the Lyric Pieces. Meanwhile Porcu Morano’s urgently communicative musicianship is well suited to works which exemplify the fascinating tension between Grieg’s musical nationalism and his cosmopolitan outlook as a composer with colleagues and friends across Europe.

There are Norwegian elements to all three sonatas – Grieg’s teacher, Niels W Gade, even pronounced his verdict on the Second as ‘too Norwegian’ – but in counterbalance to the folk-like melodies which especially bring a rustic character to both slow movements and finales, there is a breadth of form and broad current of German romanticism to be appreciated in the first movements. Grieg himself took particular pride in the Third, a work of full maturity written in 1886 unlike the student efforts of the first two sonatas, and Porcu Morano’s performance captures the composer’s sense of its ‘broader horizons’.

Tracklist
01. Grieg: Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 8: I. Allegro con Brio
02. Grieg: Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 8: II. Allegretto quasi Andantino
03. Grieg: Sonata No. 1 in F Major, Op. 8: III. Allegro molto Vivace
04. Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13: I. Lento doloroso - Allegro Vivace
05. Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13: II. Allegretto Tranquillo
06. Grieg: Sonata No. 2 in G Major, Op. 13: III. Allegro Animato
07. Grieg: Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: I. Allegro molto ed Appassionato
08. Grieg: Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: II. Allegretto espressivo alla Romanza
09. Grieg: Sonata No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 45: III. Allegro Animato