Complete Beethoven Violin Sonata Cycle

James embarks on his complete Beethoven violin sonata cycle at the Wigmore Hall this month. The only violinist invited by the hall to present all ten sonatas during the special Beethoven 250 celebrations, James’ first recital takes place on Thursday 10 October when he will perform sonatas 1, 2, 3 and 4 with his long-time collaborator pianist Andrew Armstrong. The performance will be part of the Wigmore’s Live Stream video concert series, and will be available here at the time of the concert. James has spoken of the cycle and the composer’s developments between the late 1790’s and 1812 in this short film:

This season the great Canadian violinist and his fellow countryman and pianist partner Andrew Armstrong are exploring the entire corpus of Beethoven's sonatas written for their duo, which reveal the composer's development between the late 1790s and 1812 in works that reflect the two instruments in perfect collaboration as a partnership of true equals.

In addition to the Wigmore Hall, this season James and Andrew Armstrong perform Beethoven’s sonatas internationally including at Dresden Music Festival, Prague Spring Festival, Aspen Festival and at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

This month also sees the release of the second disc of James’ complete Beethoven sonata cycle for Onyx Classics, featuring sonatas 1, 2 and 3. The first instalment of the cycle (sonatas 6 & 9) was Gramophone Editor’s choice and Sunday Times choice, and his recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto (with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze) was described by The Guardian as “more than worth the wait” and by Gramophone as “a marvel… to stand among with very best”.