Ysaye Papvrani Roussev

A recording dedicated to Frank Martin, an important figure of 20th century music, faithful to the tonal tradition, while experimenting with forms and instrumentation; he was also one of the first "classical" composers to have written for the electric guitar!

If you like your Mendelssohn mellow and refined, this may well be the set for you. Certainly, some of these works are genteel and angst free. This is especially true of the First and Fifth Quartets, and in these works and the slightly more dramatic No. 2, the Ysaye Quartet are at their best…

Eugène Ysaÿe, a violin virtuoso admired by all his contemporaries, was an inheritor of what has justly been considered as the Belgian school of violin, whose ascendancy can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century. His work as a composer, however, is much less well known today and it is this facet of his extraordinarily active life that we will explore here. He composed many different types of works; here we present his works for solo violin and orchestra, including two movements of violin concertos which are now available on record for the first time, and his chamber music.

Multi award-winning violinist James Ehnes recorded this album during lockdown at his home. Recording commenced in the early hours of the morning when all was quiet in the house. The solo violin, recorded in the small hours during these troubled times, makes for a powerful and intimate listening experience. Ysaÿe’s six sonatas for solo violin are, together with JS Bach’s Sonatas & Partitas, the most important extended works for the solo violin. Ysaÿe composed each one of them with a particular violinist in mind, capturing their personality and characteristics of their playing.

The six Sonatas for solo violin of Eugène Ysaÿe are essential works in his catalog, inspired by the sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach, and composed as a tribute to the violinists Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom, and Manuel Quiroga. These pieces suggest a Janus-like combination of retrospection and the avant-garde, hearkening to the past through allusive figurations and direct quotations (e.g., references in the Sonata No. 2 to Bach's Partita No. 3 and the Dies Irae), but looking to the future in the use of extended violin techniques and novel sonorities. Alina Ibragimova's 2015 release on Hyperion is an absorbing performance, concentrated in tone and accomplished in technique, yet wonderfully ambiguous in expression, in keeping with Ysaÿe's quirky mix of playfulness and high-minded seriousness. Recorded in the concert hall of Wyastone Estate, Monmouth, in May 2014, Ibragimova has great clarity and presence, and the acoustics provide enough resonance to soften the violin's sometimes overly rosinous sound.

Ysaÿe’s works for violin and orchestra are far less frequently encountered than his solo sonatas. There was always something of a vogue in Russia for some of the bigger works. Oistrakh was a proponent of the Poème élégiaque, recording it. More recently Raskin has committed a couple to disc. But in the main these are under-recorded works of lush, Chausson-esque evocation.