Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 01/06/2010, uploaded on 04/06/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Violin Sonata in A Major       César  Franck 

I. Allegretto moderato; II. Allegro; III. Recitative - Fantasia: Moderato; IV.   Allegretto poco mosso

Franck's one violin sonata, written in 1886, is united by a cyclic use of thematic material that connects the movements, and offers highly original use of traditional forms. It was described by Franck's composition pupil Vincent d'Indy as "the first and purest model of the cyclic treatment of themes in the form of an instrumental sonata". The sonata was given to the Belgian violinist Eugéne Ysaÿe at the latter's wedding in September 1886 and was first performed by Ysaÿe in Brussels.

The first movement serves as little more than an introduction to the weightier second movement, which offers impassioned intensity, followed by a brief interruption of a recitative section then a return to the earlier mood. 

The third movement, with the unusual title Recitative - Fantasia, recalls in its initial piano chords the opening of the sonata, with rhetorical statements from the violin. There is an imaginative development of this motive against a chromatically descending bass, before the appearance of the main theme of the movement.

A canon between the piano and violin opens the finale in almost pastoral style. The theme appears in various tonalities, with consequent variations in intensity, in a movement that provides a fitting climax to a sonata that makes considerable demands on both violinist and pianist.    Evgeny Kutik