"These two works established Bartók as one of the great masters of the century. Despite their dark, frenetic anguish, this diptych thwarted the historic hegemony of German musical science; whether it was in the all powerful classical sonata-form, or the impact of the dodecaphonic system. To reinforce his opposition to these major influences, he henceforth founded his musical language on a totally new harmonic articulation (the acoustic scale based on the Lydian and Dorian tetracord, of Rumanian folk origin), and an enlarged tonal range: C sharp minor in the First and C major in the Second Sonata. Dissonances in blocks, evolving in specks gravitate around these poles. The message is lent dynamic force by a rhythm that sometimes recalls Stravinsky in L’Histoire du Soldat, while an inimitable art of ornament employs colours and contours derived from a variety of Danubian countries folk music.
The Sonata No. 1 is in the preclassical fast-slow-fast form, with the opening Allegro appassionato composed of a succession of agitated and stark episodes, a play on mirrors, built, in fact, on a single theme. The Adagio is an early example of the night music of which Bartók has the secret, an uneasily calm melody, a long chant on the violin in a dialogue exploiting all the resources of the variation with the piano that is constantly reinventing the harmony specific to the theme with a linking together of minor seconds. A virtuoso episode enters to animate the harmonic surface of this landscape which is, however, as in Debussy or Sibelius, in a state of unceasing effervescence. The subjacent agitation abates, giving way to the appearance of an almost dramatic anguish. The finale, Allegro, bursts out violently, driven by the piano, percussively propelling a burlesque, grimacing Rumanian theme. The violin comments on it, according to the logic of a rondo whose ferocity increases by passing from melodic origin to more and more rasping quotations. The theme is nothing more than a sequence of waste scraps, of spiral shavings torn from a perpetual movement that abruptly, unavailingly stops dead.
The Sonata No.2 returns to the form of a Hungarian rhapsody two opposite lassù-friss structure. A lot of themes seems to run through the opening Molto moderato like a dazzling series of improvisations on the fourteen notes of the principal motif which has a Rumanian cast. These restless micro-melodies, further enlivened by a highly complex rhythmic pattern (with three or five uneven beats to the bar), with reminiscences of the at times Debussian harmonies of the Op. 18 Studies and the night music of the Sonata No. 1. The piano counters with a more diatonic melodic logic. No joint development: the two instruments pursue their soliloquy independently. The Allegretto is a precursor of the elusive concluding Hunt of Out of doors Sz 81. The previous Rumanian theme reappears at the violin in a fleeting coda, whose throbbing pulse, is vital breath, like the sublimation of an impalpably quivering night music.

Awards: Choc by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason d’Or, 9 by Classica-Répertoire

“The perfect miracle doubtless stems from the fact of having succeeded in naturally establishing this stylistic synthesis to which Bartók aspired and revealing the richness and invention of the writing in full light. Here then is an exemplary achievement that marks a milestone and to which one will henceforth have to refer.” (Diapason, January 2001)
“With its dark, almost sombre, sonority, its trenchant, aggressive and sensual qualities, Peter Csaba’s violin is descended in a direct line from those of Joseph Szigeti and André Gertler with masterful density, Heisser’s playing, as unpolished, clarified and introspective, enters into this universe, succeeding in suggesting its poetry that is so difficult to make accessible.” (Le Monde de la Musique, December 2000)"

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