Frank / Grieg: Violin Sonatas

Nishizak

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Cat No: 8550417

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030504172

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: FRANK / GRIEG

Description
Cesar Franck (1822 -1890)Sonata in A MajorEdvard Grieg (1843 - 1907)Sonata in C Minor, Op. 45Lyric Pieces / Lyrische St??cke (arr. Vladimir Godar)The career of Cesar Franck is a curious one. Destined by his father for theconcert-platform as a virtuoso pianist, he achieved instead a position ofinfluence among his own circle in Paris as a composer and organist, distrustedand never fully accepted by the wider musical establishment.Franck was born in Belgium, but moved to Paris as a student, at theinsistence of his father. He held various positions in churches in Paris and in1872 became organist at the Conservatoire. The appointment was an unexpectedone, since Franck was unskilled in musical politics, normally an essentialability. His openness led, in fact, to further unpopularity, as his organstudents profited from his ability as a composer, to the resentment of theConservatoire professors of composition.Franck's single violin sonata was written in 1886, immediately before hisSymphony and the String Quartet. It resembles the larger works of Franck in thethematic connection between its movements and in its highly original use oftraditional forms. It was described by Franck's pupil Vincent d'Indy as"the first and purest model of the cyclic treatment of themes in the formof an instrumental sonata". The sonata was given to the Belgian violinistEug?¿ne Ysa??e at the latter's wedding in September of the year of itscomposition and was first performed by him in Brussels.The first movement of the sonata, with its characteristic opening theme,serves as little more than an introduction to the weightier second movement,itself one of impassioned intensity preceding a brief interruption of recitativeand are turn to the earlier mood, the thematic material always suggesting theintervals used in the initial bars of the first movement.The third movement, with the unusual title Recitativo - Fantasia,starts, after introductory piano chords recalling the opening of the sonata,with rhetorical statements from the violin. Of this there is an imaginativedevelopment, against a chromatically descending bass, before the appearance ofthe main theme of the movement.A canon between piano and violin opens the finale in almost pastoral style.The theme appears in various tonalities, with consequent variations inintensity, in a movement that provides a fitting climax to a sonata that itselfmakes considerable demands on both violinist and pianist.The Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg was the great-grandson of a Scottishlobster-exporter, an emigrant from Scotland after the battle of Culloden and thefinal defeat of the Stuart heirs to the thrones of England and Scotland. Hisfather was British consul in Bergen and his mother an amateur pianist of someability. Through her Grieg was able to make early progress on the sameinstrument, as well as to benefit from the cultural environment provided by hisfamily.It was through the encouragement of the violinist Ole Bull, a visitor to theGrieg Famil
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