Classical Music | Music for Viola

Recorded on 09/12/2006, uploaded on 01/17/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

The Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major was César Franck’s only sonata for the instrument. It has become a staple of the violin repertoire and stands alongside the Symphony in D minor as one of the composer’s finest and most beloved compositions. Though composed in 1886, the sonata’s genesis may have actually taken place nearly three decades earlier in 1858. Franck had promised a violin sonata for Cosima von Bülow, the daughter of Franz Liszt and later the wife of Richard Wagner. The proposed sonata never materialized but it is possible that whatever shards remained, if any, from Franck’s work may have become the basis of the present work. Franck presented the A major sonata to the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe as a wedding present on September 26, 1886. After a hurried rehearsal, Ysaÿe and pianist Léontine Bordes-Pène performed the sonata for the other wedding guests during Ysaÿe’s nuptial day. Its official premiere public performance was given by Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène a few months later on December 16 at the Musée Moderne de Peinture at Brussels. The sonata was the last item on a rather lengthy program that had begun at 3pm. The setting sun and the gallery authorities’ refusal to allow artificial light threatened to leave Franck’s masterpiece unperformed. Yet, according to Vincent d’Indy, who was present at the performance, as the light continued to fade, Ysaÿe and Bordes-Pène performed the last three movements of the sonata from memory. The Violin Sonata has since appeared in transcriptions for many instruments, but only that for cello earned Franck’s official endorsement.

Adhering to both the Classical Viennese tradition Franck gravitated towards in his final years and his luscious Romantic harmonic language, the Violin Sonata spans a four-movement design of dramatic proportions. A lyrical Allegretto opens the sonata, supplanting the usual quick-paced first movement, but by no means diminished in intensity or profundity. Turbulence arrives, however, in the Allegro second movement, opening with a furious introduction from the piano, followed by a passionate melody from the violin. The length of this movement and the weightiness of his principal ideas give it the impression of an opening sonata-allegro movement, leaving one to wonder if the preceding Allegretto was not but a protracted introduction. Serving as the sonata’s slow movement is the Recitativo-Fantasia. Certainly the most striking movement, it is a piece of great depth and emotion and the darkening gloam in which it received its first performance could only have enhanced its gloomy and ghostly quality. The twilight of the third movement, however, is gloriously dispelled in the bright opening theme of the finale. Yet, even with this cheerful introduction, the last movement is not without its intense and passionate moments brought on by the intermingling of ideas from the previous movements. In radiant glory, the sonata comes to a brilliant and triumphant close.         Joseph DuBose

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Sonata in A Major (transcribed for Viola and Piano)       César Franck

1) Allegretto moderato; 2) Allegro; 3) Recitativo-Fantasia; 4) Allegretto poco mosso

Cesar Franck is considered one of the leading figures of French musical life in the late 19^th century. This sonata (subsequently transcribed for many instruments, including viola) is one of his most famous compositions and a great example of his mature compositional style.

Two aspects of the sonata are notable; the cyclic unity among several motifs in which all of the principal themes are generated from a germinal motif, and the advanced use of modulation for which Franck was well known.

The first movement begins with a poetic Allegretto moderato in 9/8 time and ends with a brief codetta.  The second movement opens with a low sixteenth note rumbling in the piano that soon overflows into a full-blooded Allegro. The third Recitativo-Fantasia movement includes a tranquil, almost other-worldly, middle section which introduces the two striving themes with characteristic triplet-rhythm accompaniment, which will return in the glorious Finale.  The fourth movement builds toward a passionate fortissimo with the return of the second of the third-movement themes. The opening canonic theme returns once more to bring the work to a cheerful close.    Eric Nowlin

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.