Ysaÿe Six Sonatas For Solo Violin Hillary Hahn

L’interprétation intense, poétique, aux sentiments exacerbés des six Sonates pour violon seul, Op. 27, d’Eugène Ysaÿe, du violoniste arménien Sergey Khachatryan, qui joue ici, pour la première fois au disque dans cet opus, le propre violon du compositeur, le célèbre et sublime Guarneri del Gesù « Ysaÿe » de 1740. La figure du Cantor de Leipzig obsédait le grand violoniste belge Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931) et l’ensemble de six Sonates pour violon seul qu’il compose en juillet 1923 suite à des concerts légendaires où Joseph Szigeti jouait les Sonates et Partitas de Bach se veut un hommage, et aussi le témoin en six étapes de l'évolution des techniques du violon depuis le XVIIIe siècle.

Eugène Ysaÿe's set of Six Sonatas for solo violin, Op. 27, was written in July 1923. Each sonata was dedicated to one of Ysaÿe’s contemporary violinists: Joseph Szigeti (No. 1), Jacques Thibaud (No. 2), George Enescu (No. 3), Fritz Kreisler (No. 4), Mathieu Crickboom (No. 5), and Manuel Quiroga (No. 6).

Eugène Ysaÿe (Liège, 16 July 1858 - Brussels, 12 May 1931) is known to have conceived the idea of writing a cycle of six sonatas for solo violin during a concert in July 1923, while listening to his great contemporary musician Joseph Szigeti play Johann Sebastian Bach. He locked himself in his room, instructed not to be disturbed except to receive his meals, and over the next twenty-four hours sketched out the six pieces that would become his op. 27. Although the anecdote is historically well-founded, it is doubtful that a cycle destined to become a monument to violin art only in the twentieth century - what Bach’s sonatas and partitas were for the eighteenth century and Paganini’s Caprices for the nineteenth - can be reduced to an extemporaneous creative act, rather than the result of a meditated compositional project. A glance at the sonatas as a whole is enough to grasp the signs of a precise plan, which stemmed from the desire of a virtuoso, who was about to hang his bow, to write his artistic and technical testament by highlighting the profound connections between the legacy of tradition and the most innovative achievements in the music of his time…

Eugène Ysaÿe (Liège, 16 July 1858 - Brussels, 12 May 1931) is known to have conceived the idea of writing a cycle of six sonatas for solo violin during a concert in July 1923, while listening to his great contemporary musician Joseph Szigeti play Johann Sebastian Bach. He locked himself in his room, instructed not to be disturbed except to receive his meals, and over the next twenty-four hours sketched out the six pieces that would become his op. 27.

In this album, Sergey Khachatryan presents the first recording of Ysaÿe's 6 Solo Sonatas Op.27 on the composer’s Guarneri del Gesù violin - a magnificent, hypnotic instrument!

Italian violinist Paolo Ghidoni follows an acclaimed album of Bach sonatas and partitas with this recording of Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, written in July 1923. Each one of the sonatas is dedicated to a different violinist of the era, including the project's inspiration Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud and George Enescu.

When Eugène Ysaÿe composed his cycle of 6 sonatas, Op. 27 for solo violin in June 1923, gut strings were still very common and highly appreciated - statements by contemporary violinists such as Mischa Elman, Toscha Seidel and Jacques Thibaud confirm this. However, neither the dedicatees of Eugène Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas nor other contemporaries made recordings of these works. Martin Reimann has now performed them on gut strings, and the special charm of his recording is that it gives these wonderful works a sonority that is likely to correspond to the aesthetic ideas of their time of creation.

After two productions with chamber music, Stefan Tarara now presents his debut album as a soloist on Ars Produktion. The young Heidelberg violinist interprets Eugène Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas Op.27 for violin solo on a Stradivari from 1721. Each of these pieces is dedicated to a certain famous violinist, e.g. George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler or Joseph Szigeti, and is composed in a corresponding style. Stefan Tarara was born into a musical family in Heidelberg, Germany in 1986 and made his stage debut at the age of four.

What makes Ysaye’s solo sonatas so extraordinary is the richness of their harmonies, offering endless possibilities to explore a vast spectrum of contrasts in sound projection and violinistic effects each time you engage with them.

What makes Ysaye’s solo sonatas so extraordinary is the richness of their harmonies, offering endless possibilities to explore a vast spectrum of contrasts in sound projection and violinistic effects each time you engage with them.