Sara Trickey brings her ‘beautifully refined tone’ (Musical Opinion) and her ‘fiery and passionate’ (The Strad) performance style to Champs Hill Records with an album of early works for violin by Schubert.

Composed in 1816 (Schubert was nineteen and already the composer of such landmark Lieder as Gretchen am Spinnrade and Der Erlkönig as well as several symphonies), the sonatas in this collection were originally published in 1836, eight years after Schubert’s death, as Sonatinas, aimed at the lucrative amateur music market.

However, the Sonatas in D major (D 384), A minor (D 385), and G minor (D 408) are musically more ambitious than their titles might suggest, as Sara Trickey explains: ‘I see in them all the ingredients of Schubert’s voice – the joy mixed with frailty, the poignancy and darkness which never quite subsumes a sense of hope – but mapped out on a slightly less epic canvas than many later and more famous works. There are passing hints of almost everything that is to come, but they are presented innocently here, in a way that is sometimes mistaken for triviality. I wanted the sonatinas to hold centre stage on this disc, rather than being seen just as precursors to the wonderfully rich Fantasy and Grand Duo sonata which were written later for the same combination of instruments.’

Sara Trickey is joined by Daniel Tong at the piano for the Sonatinas and by the Callino String Quartet for the Rondo for violin and strings in A major, D 438.