In the 1920s, Paul Hindemith was well and truly aboard the Modernist bandwagon, writing “shocking” absurdist operas employing bitonal harmony and even jazz. His violin sonatas, however, bypassed all this. His first two appeared in 1919 and 1920, predating his iconoclastic period, while the later sonatas date from 1935 and 1939, by which time he had left youthful hijinks behind. 

Though Brahms would have found them mystifying, in the early works Hindemith breathes the same air as the older master. No 2 gets a strong performance from German violinist Tanja Becker-Bender and her Hungarian partner Péter Nagy. They are thoroughly inside the idiom, capturing the slightly lugubrious atmosphere of the slow movement. They also show fine rapport in the later C Major Sonata, when Becker-Benda lightens her tone for the fleeting scale passages at the close of the Langsam movement.Elsewhere they can turn abrasive – Hindemith’s music doesn’t need help to sound tough – and at forte Becker-Bender’s tone becomes wiry in the upper register. 

Recent competition in Op 11 No 1 and the two later sonatas comes from Frank Peter Zimmermann on BIS. His tone is easier on the ear, and his musicianship (and that of his pianist Enrico Pace) is equally impressive. He doesn’t play Op 11 No 2 but instead gives us the 1939 Violin Concerto. For my money, Zimmermann is preferable.