Suddenly, James Ehnes seems to be everywhere, and with good reason. His Bartók recording project (the concertos — violin and viola — have been released, and the sonatas and rhapsodies with piano are pending) hasn’t gotten around to the Solo Sonata so far, but I can’t think of many violinists better equipped to do a spectacular job of it.
The rest of the program consists of the music an all-around musician would program — at least, the type who has a wicked bow-arm, a tender tone, and an affection for Mozart. I recently said that describing Ehnes as “the Jascha Heifetz of our day” was silly, but that’s premature; I haven’t heard him play the Saint-Saëns First Sonata yet. He might still out-Heifetz Heifetz. Certainly he could, if he wished, tear that sonata to bits, in a good way.
The Fauré First Sonata would seem to be right up Ehnes’ alley — lyrical, but with those flashy bits in which he excels. The Mozart he’s playing is a sort of musicological curiosity, in that Mozart wrote out the violin part for performance, but didn’t have time to write down the piano part until after the premiere; he just played what was in his head. It’s a story that makes even the helter-skelter writing of the “Linz” Symphony look tame, but that’s your basic Mozart; if you can write almost literally on the fly, why wouldn’t you? The piece shows no signs of being dashed off, but then neither does the “Linz.”