Violin Sonatas Op.12 Nos 1,2 and 3 - Beethoven

Violin Sonata Op.24 (Spring) - Beethoven

In the first of their series of Sunday recitals in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre, both players forcefully presented Beethoven as a full-blown Romantic composer.

The three Sonatas of Op.12 could be regarded as works which still retained an elegant, almost Mozartean intimacy, but the two players chose to ignore that aspect in favour of large-scale public gesture.

This approach, in which every note is, as it were, invested with special significance, is undoubtedly impressive, but in the process some of the subtleties are lost.

The "Spring" Sonata Op. 24 was the most persuasive and the one in which the emphatic nature of the performance warred the least with the meditative side of the music. The Adagio touched a new depth of feeling and the short Scherzo was a cleverly cut gem.