EM Records was proud to present, on EMR CD011, the first-ever recording of a violin sonata by Ivor Gurney; and the label is equally proud to issue this recording of the same composer’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in D major. Dating from around 1918, it combines formal rigour with harmonic fluidity and strongly characteristic melodic gestures; and it is a work of emotional immediacy, passion and human warmth. It is complemented by one of the twentieth century’s best-known British biolin-and-piano sonatas, that of Edward Elgar, here recorded using the Urtext edition lately published by G. Henle Verlag of Munich and prepared by Rupert Marshall-Luck. Three of Elgar’s much-loved salon pieces, also published as Urtext by G. Henle Verlag, complete the disc.