Reto

Pauline Viardot, daughter of the famous tenor, composer, operatic impresario and teacher, Manuel García, and friend of Schumann and Chopin, was a mezzo-soprano and composer. Her Violin Sonatina in A minor reflects her operatic background with its long melodic lines. Her son Paul, the dedicatee of Fauré’s great A minor Sonata, wrote three beautifully crafted, expressively rich violin sonatas over an almost fifty-year period.

Henry Vieuxtemps was a towering figure in the line of 19th-century violinist-composers, receiving admiration from Wagner, Chopin and Berlioz. A virtuoso in the Paganini tradition, Vieuxtemps was also one of the first to employ a full Romantic orchestral palette in his concertante works and to imbue them with a true ‘symphonic’ conception, as these examples show. They include the Duo brillant, Op. 39—a dramatic and expressive mini double concerto for violin and cello, the bravura caprice Old England, Op. 42 and the Air varié, Op. 6 with its rich lyricism, four variations and dashing coda.