Kerson Leong: Fauré

The Strad Issue: July 2026

Description: Highly idiomatic artistry gets to the heart of the matter

Musicians: Kerson Leong (violin) Jonathan Fournel (piano)

Works: Fauré: Violin Sonatas; song transcriptions

Catalogue number: ALPHA ALPHA1177

From Kerson Leong’s opening entry in Fauré’s First Sonata his playing is both gentle and firmly shaped, the melody becoming an undulating stream. It’s urgent and full of purpose at one moment, relaxed, even languorous, at the next, but the musical trajectory is always clear and gripping. In the second-movement Andante, Fauré is insistent on his dolces – the pianist even gets a dolcissimo – and both Leong and his partner Jonathan Fournel provide a masterly demonstration of how this should be done. The one-crotchet-to-a-bar Allegro vivo, with its leggierissimo staccato semiquavers, cracks away wonderfully: it is easy to hear why it stopped the show at its first public performance. And there is supple grace and structural rigour in the Allegro quasi presto finale.

Between the two sonatas Fauré the consummate melodist appears in a selection of song arrangements, made by various hands, played with exquisite tendresse. In the Second Sonata, more rhythmically and harmonically complex than the first, Leong continues to show that audible bow changes are optional and often unnecessary. Whenever the music seems inclined to free rhapsody he responds with strong, decisive playing. The long lines of the central Andante are beautifully moulded, with a steady, subtle increase in intensity. The finale is warm and open-hearted, a fine sign-off for an album full of colour and delight. The recording is close and well balanced.

TIM HOMFRAY