Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 07/12/2017, uploaded on 06/27/2018

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Clara Schumann was a prodigiously gifted pianist who also demonstrated a compositional gift suppressed by the antiquated but widespread notion that women were not born to write music for public consumption. Three Romances, Op. 22 for violin and piano was composed for her to perform on tour with the eminent violinist and family friend Joseph Joachim. The piano opens the Andante molto with a quietly ravishing passage and is soon partnered by the violin’s lyrical songlike flowing tune. A brief central episode counters with energetic arpeggio figures from the piano before switching back and forth with gentler passagework. A single piano chord launches the following Allegretto. The syncopated and lyrical main theme is animated by trills from the violin enhanced by energizing piano figures. A second theme further heightens the energy. During the movement’s central section, both instruments trade off mutually imitative figures before returning to the minor-key “A” section where the piano assumes a larger role in reprising the main theme. The movement ends on an unexpected single pizzicato chord. The finale, Leidenschaftlich schnell (“fervent, fast”), opens rhapsodically with wave-like arpeggios on the piano over which the violin soars with an enchanting and optimistic song of its own. The succeeding variations all retain an engagingly lyrical quality wherein the violin continues with its lighter-than-air ambience, held aloft by the piano’s bubbling accompaniment.           Notes by Steven Lowe

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.