French Violin Sonatas

Various Composer

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Cat No: 8550276

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030502765

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: French Violin Sonatas

Description
French Violin Sonatas Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Violin Sonata Camille Saint-Sa?½ns (1835-1921): Violin Sonata No. 1 in D minor, Op. 75 Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Violin Sonata Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Violin SonataFrench acceptance of the violin as a seriousinstrument was relatively late. Louis XIII established his famous courtorchestra, the 24 Violins of the King, in 1626, but the musical demands made onthe players seem to have been limited, their duties being principally toprovide dance music. The Italian dancer, violinist and composer Lully, thecreator of French opera and of the French opera orchestra, changed matters, butit was left to the composer-violinists of the eighteenth century to establish,under Italian influence, the full pre-eminence of the violin in French musicand to develop a school of violin-playing of great importance.Debussy's Violin Sonata was the third of a projected set of six sonatas that the composer began in 1915, at a time when the cancer that was to cause his death in 1918, was already severe, adding to the anxieties of the war. The completed sonatas, for cello and piano and for flute, viola and harp, were attributed on the title-pages to Claude Debussy, musicien fran?ºais. The sonata opens with a movement in which a new range of sonorities is delicately exploited between the two instruments. The second movement provides an example of French ornamental orientalism and is followed by a final movement that recalls the first.Debussy had little good to say of Saint-Sa?½ns, and the latter had still less time for Debussy, whom he outlived by three years, although he was 27 years his senior. Of the new music Saint-Sa?½ns claimed that, while one could get used to anything, there were some things one should simply not get used to and Debussy, by implication, was one of them. He exercised his wit on the innovative L'apr?¿s-midi d'un faune -Je deviendrais vite aphone, si j'allais en etourdi m'egosiller comme un faune fetant son apr?¿s-midi.(I'd soon lose my voice, if I went roundwitlessly bawling like a faun celebrating his afternoon).Of the four violin sonatas included here, the earliest, by Camille Saint-Sa?½ns, was written in 1885, to be followed by a second sonata eleven years later, Saint-Sa?½ns, once known as the French Mendelssohn, was a remarkably versatile composer and an enthusiastic supporter of modern trends in music in his younger days. By the time of his death in 1921 he had outlived both Debussy and his own reputation, to be identified by younger musicians as an extreme conservative and by some as the composer of bad music, well written. He was, nevertheless, an important composer in himself and a potent influence on his pupil Gabriel Faure and hence on Faure's own pupil, Ravel.The first of the two violin sonatas of Saint-Sa?½ns came at a time when the composer was at the height of his powers, the period of the famous Organ Symphony, and a work that he hi
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