Switzerland's most successful composer of operas and lieder, Othmar Schoeck also composed a small but respectable body of chamber works, of which his three sonatas for violin and piano are representative. Conservative, consistently tonal, and only mildly adventurous in his use of dissonances (that, nonetheless, regularly resolve), Schoeck was a post-Romantic with a deep nostalgia for Brahmsian Classicism, similar in this regard to his onetime teacher Max Reger. The work most directly indebted to Brahms' and Reger's influences is the Sonata in D major, WoO 22 (1905), though the Sonata in D major, Op. 16 (1909), also shares some of the same language and character. The later Sonata in E major, Op. 46 (1931), is more overtly modernist in its angularity and ambiguous chromaticism, and may remind some of
Hindemith's music in its harmony, counterpoint, and dry, utilitarian effect. No one would seriously consider Schoeck's three violin sonatas to be masterpieces, but they are enjoyable curiosities of early twentieth century music, and smoothly performed by violinist Simone Zgraggen and pianist Ulrich Koella on this 2005 release from Claves. The musicians give Schoeck's quaint pieces a charming parlor quality, never too big for the modest scale and purpose of the works, yet passionate enough to make the expression seem appropriate for the period and genuinely felt. The sound quality is quite good, though a bit too resonant in spots.