Sonata in a for two violins

Program Note:

The Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) created an immense body of works. His name is not often encountered on typical concert programs, being reserved primarily for recitals that focus on solo violin repertoire. Ysaÿe was born among the generation of towering late 19th-century virtuosi: violinists like Kreisler and Sarasate, pianists like Busoni and Godowski. He also received the dedications of works by contemporaneous composers, including Chausson and Debussy. Franck’s famous Violin Sonata in A Major was written as a wedding present for Ysaÿe in 1866.
Ysaÿe studied first with his father, who was himself an accomplished musician. There is even a legend told of almost mythical beginnings to the family’s musical heritage. The talented youth began formal training at the conservatory in Liège, though Eugène’s progress faltered due to extensive performance demands made upon him by several local orchestras. Fortunate he received guidance from two of the most important violinists at that time, Henri Vieuxtemps and his assistant, Henryk Wieniawski. One of Ysaÿe’s first posts following graduation was with a beer-hall orchestra, which in time became the mighty Berlin Philharmonic. He then appeared at a prominent music series in Paris, and his career as a concert artist took off. Compositions proceeded in step with his concertizing, and many of Ysaÿe’s best-known works are flamboyant, difficult sonatas he wrote for his own needs.
The Sonata in A Minor for two violins, composed in 1915and published posthumously, stands alone in Ysaÿe’s output in terms of scoring. More popular are his solo sonatas, which show a great indebtedness to Bach’s sonatas and partitas for violin. Echoes of Bach resound in the two-violin sonata, which starts with a powerful, chromatic slow introduction prior to the main Allegro theme. That theme quotes the fugue from Bach’s Sonata in C major, though much of the time Ysaÿe focuses on only four notes as inspiration for wonderful flights of fancy. Not surprisingly, he inserts his own fugue toward the middle, surrounded by passages of wicked double stops and harmonic effects. But what speaks through this work is not merely virtuosity; it articulates a touching reverence for string writing from ages past.

(c) Jason Stell