Trio sonata in e

That Jean-Marie Leclair was a French composer and first-rate violinist could be discerned simply by hearing tonight’s unaccompanied Sonata in E Minor for two violins. It is worth mentioning, however, that he was also a dancing master, and such expertise could hardly fail to improve the quality of his instrumental works based on traditional dance forms (allemande, sarabande, minuet, etc.). In the 1730s Leclair took up residence in Paris at the Royal Orchestra, though for a time he also served royalty in The Hague. History shows that his temper often got him in trouble, and that, like J. S. Bach, employers were not afraid to show him the door. After several peripatetic years in northern Europe, Leclair eventually returned to Paris and died there under mysterious circumstances; the accepted tale is that he was murdered by his cousin.
Leclair is frequently regarded as the doyen of the French violin sonata. His achievement—and it is no small matter—was to effectively merge the vigor and vehemence of the Italian solo sonata with his own mastery of idiomatic French ornamentation, refined melodic style, and grace. After coming to maturity with a firm grasp of violin virtuosity, Leclair gradually moved away from flash and dazzle toward a distinct style that is both poignant and yet technically demanding. (If you attended the recent Festival Gala concert, you might recall a similar evolution in the career of Willem de Fesch.) The austerity of Leclair’s compositional voice suggests a tempering of the Italian fundamentals, absorbed from Corelli and Locatelli, by means of exposure to Bach and Telemann.
The E-minor sonata heard this evening comes from his third collection of violin sonatas, and it typifies Leclair’s transcendence of mere virtuosity. The piece is striking for its lack of accompanying basso continuo—striking, that is, because the continuo provides the structural underpinning for almost all 17th- and 18th-century works. The notion of a true “solo” or unaccompanied sonata was still in its infancy when Leclair’s opus 3 appeared in 1730: Bach’s circa 1720 collections of sonatas and partitas for violin and Telemann’s twelve Fantasias for Solo Violin (1735) were some early steps in that direction.

Leclair’s E-minor sonata opens with an agile Allegro dominated by triplet rhythms. The two sections of the binary movement start contrapuntally: the first as a canon at the unison, the second more like a fugue. Beyond this call-and-response structure, there is little distinction between primo and secondo parts. In the second movement, a graceful gavotte, the second violin takes on a more chordal, accompanimental role in support of the first violin melody. The final movement vacillates between duo and melody-plus accompaniment textures, and there is some nice rhythmic counterpoint to alleviate the motoric, presto drive to the finish.

(c) Jason Stell