Esposito: Violin and Cello Sonatas

Italian composer, pianist and conductor Michele Esposito (1855-1929), nowdays best remembered through the Feis Ceoil's Esposito Cup, was a musical powerhouse in Dublin for more than four decades. This persuasively performed new disc brings first recordings of his three violin sonatas. The first was dedicated to fellow-countryman and RIAM colleague Guido Papini; the second premièred by Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot after winning a competition in Paris in 1907; and the third was dedicated to his pupil Hamilton Harty. They are Brahmsian in manner, but in an attractively aerated way. The Cello Sonata, written for the RIAM's German cello professor, Henry Bast, is less successful, its flecks of Irish flavour standing out uncomfortably. url.ie/6l38