Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 01/23/2012, uploaded on 01/23/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Camille Saint-Saёns wrote his First Violin Sonata in 1885, after having composed three violin concerti and his famous Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso for violin and orchestra.  The structure of the sonata is unorthodox:  the four movements are paired so that the first two and last two movements are connected, dividing the sonata into two compound movements.  The first movement, marked Allegro agitato, is full of tension, agitation, and restlessness.  The lyrical second movement, Adagio, expresses nostalgia and Romantic yearning, contrasted by a lighter dancelike central episode.  The balletic third movement, Allegretto moderato, dances lightly and gracefully in a breezy triple meter; it recalls the elfin spirit of the famous scherzo from Felix Mendelssohn’s incidental music to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (a piece that Saint-Saëns transcribed for piano).  The finale, Allegro molto, erupts with a flurry of running sixteenth notes in the violin.  The middle section reprises a reminiscence of the lyrical second theme from the first movement, giving the piece a sense of unifying cyclic form.  In the coda, Saint-Saëns returns to the rush of the sixteenth notes, this time in simultaneous octaves by the two instruments, leading to a triumphant conclusion.     Wen Lei Gu

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.