For her debut solo album on BIS Records, Alina Ibragimova recorded the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven together with Cédric Tiberghien. As you would expect, the first violinist of the Chiaroscuro Quartet presents these masterpieces of chamber music on period instruments. While playing a gut-string instrument, Tiberghien performs on a fortepiano, a copy of a Viennese instrument from 1794. This new interpretation of Beethoven's violin sonatas brings us as close as possible to the sound world that listeners would have heard when these works were first performed around the turn of the 19th century.

This first volume contains the three violin sonatas opus 12, the first ones Beethoven published in Vienna, where he had already established himself as Mozart's successor. As was customary at that time, they are written "for harpsichord or fortepiano, accompanied by a violin," but following Mozart's example, they are actually intended for both instruments simultaneously.

The CD concludes with the "Spring Sonata," the most popular and arguably the most poetic of the violin sonatas. We look forward to the continuation of this undoubtedly groundbreaking recording series, with the second and third installments coming soon.