As in so many other aspects of his output, Brahms was intensely self-critical about his violin sonatas. He composed his first as early as 1853, when he was just 20, which he probably played privately with his friends, and may well have written at least four more, all of which were destroyed. In 1879, he produced what we now know as No 1, the G major Sonata, Op 78.
Like both the works that followed, the G major was written for Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim, for whom he had recently completed his Violin Concerto, and it shares that monumental work's lyrical effusiveness, its concern to make the violin sing above all else. The same mood pervades the second Sonata, in A major, Op 100, which emerged seven years later, and it seems as if it was around then too that he at least sketched the D minor Sonata Op 108, though that would not be finished for another two years. As its stormy key suggests, its mood is very different from that of its predecessors, and it is also conceived on a much larger scale, with four movements rather than the regulation three - it is much more a work designed for public consumption than the intimacies of the works in G and A.
Heard in succession on a single disc, Brahms's progression through the triptych of sonatas is fascinating, yet for such popular works, surprisingly few partnerships have made integral recordings. Krysia Ostostowicz and Susan Tomes (Hyperion) have a wonderful naturalness about their playing; it is true chamber music, unlike Itzhak Perlman's over-emphatic live performances with Daniel Barenboim (Sony) or the studio recordings made by Vladimir Ashkenazy (EMI).
There's a great deal of honest, if slightly underplayed musicality in Arthur Grumiaux's performances with Gyorgy Sebk (Philips), while Augustin Dumay and Maria Joao Pires (Deutsche Grammophon) are fastidious on detail, but slightly lacking in vision. The Viktoria Mullova and Pyotr Anderszewski recording (Philips) is just a shade too capricious.
Best of all, though, are the recordings made in 1967 by Josef Suk and Julius Katchen as an appendix to Katchen's survey of Brahms piano music. This was the first time all three sonatas had been accommodated on a single LP. Suk's violin playing is beguilingly direct and unashamedly romantic, while Katchen's approach is powerful yet potently lyrical, and they complement each other perfectly. It has recently been reissued at mid-price in Decca's Legends series, and unquestionably deserves its place in that pantheon.
Key Recording: Josef Suk and Julius Katchen
