Kolja Lessing & Sebastiaan Oosthout

The German violinist Kolia Lessing is one of our greatest recent discoveries. He is an extraordinary musician and also a keen researcher. He repeatedly rescues marvellous gems from oblivion, such as violin works by Telemann and his contemporary Johann Paul Westhoff. Lessing devotes himself to the music of Zoltán Székely. This Hungarian was a friend of Béla Bartók, who dedicated his Second Violin Concerto to him. But Székely himself was also a creditable composer. His Sonata for Solo Violin is a pioneering work of unprecedented originality, full of rhythmic energy and sound fantasy. He wrote it 25 years before Bartók's great solo sonata. Kolia Lessing was able to learn the work with the aid and approval of the composer himself, now extremely old. A true revelation!