Eugčne Ysa˙e (1858-1931)
The Genius of Ysa˙e
Introduction for solo viola
Sonata for solo cello, Op 28 (1924)
Sonata for solo violin in D minor, Op 27 No 3 Ballade (1923)
String Trio No 1, Op 33 Le Chimay (1927)
String Trio No 2, Op 34 (1927)
Elmira Darvarova (violin), Ronald Carbone (viola), Samuel Magill (cello)
rec. 2022, Oktaven Audio, Mount Vernon; Silverstone Studio, Las Vegas
AFFETTO AF2203 [63]
It’s over ninety years since Ysa˙e’s death but still previously unknown works are being uncovered, dates of composition adjusted, and elements added to the composer-violinist’s biography. In her unusually erudite and wide-ranging notes violinist Elmira Darvarova reflects on these elements which include the revelation that it was not Josef Gingold but George Enescu who had premiered the Sonata Op 27/3, the Ballade.
The disc is unusually interesting for including a world premiere as well as two final versions of his String Trios. The premiere is the Introduction for Solo Viola, undated and lasting just over three minutes. It’s known that Ysa˙e had intended to write two viola sonatas, one of them for Lionel Tertis. It’s possible that the Introduction is a torso from a larger, now lost or unwritten work, or it may simply be a standalone piece. It’s characteristic of Ysa˙e to encode Bachian elements in it, as he did in the solo sonata he dedicated to Jacques Thibaud, but it’s also imbued with a romanticists’ conviction. That said, it seems unlikely to me that it could be a piece in itself.
The Sonata for solo cello was written at roughly the same time as the solo violin sonatas, 1924. It’s cast in four distinctive movements. The first sustains its ‘Grave’ indication throughout but for the Intermezzo Ysa˙e allows guitar-like pizzicati to irradiate the music, alternating with expressive songful, Spanish richness. There’s a terse recitative movement followed by the finale, whose polyphonic writing alternates with affirmative buzzing vivacity. It’s a fine work and splendidly played by Samuel Magill, who sounds thoroughly inside the idiom and plays with burnished control.
We are on more popular ground with the ‘Ballade’ sonata played by Elmira Darvarova. This compressed work, here lasting 6:50, contains transitions that Darvarova negotiates seamlessly allowing the work’s rhetoric to unfold naturally. Her knowledge of the work’s history, which includes its performance history and tradition, is notable but more impressive is her tonal subtlety. The last two works are the String Trios, Op 33 Chimay and the Op 34. These are both big, strong works revealing a wealth of detail. Heard here in the composer’s final versions, Ysa˙e’s manuscripts didn’t emerge until many years after his death and in both cases the definitive editions have recently been produced by Nandor Szederkényi. Previous recordings have used preliminary manuscript editions and there is much more detail about this in the booklet. The Trio No 1 in which the two string players already mentioned are joined by violist Ronald Carbone is a work of slithery impressionism and chromaticism, its rich material flowing without a break and for 21 minutes it casts its spell. This feat of fluidity is crowned by a spirit of brooding romanticism at its apex, a journey charted with unerring imagination and precision by the threesome.
The Op 33 Trio is the better known of the two but the Op 34 is a fine work in its own right and reveals Ysa˙e’s control of material on an only slightly smaller single-movement span. It’s a work that feeds on a play of terseness and ebullience with a mid-point stasis that inaugurates cumulative tension, incident, and excitement, perfectly realised by the Darvarova-Carbone-Magill trio. The melange of influences is sometimes clear, sometimes occluded, but never manages to submerge Ysa˙e’s natural command of the chamber medium.
The recording quality is most sympathetic and the performances, as already noted, are ardent and accomplished.
Jonathan Woolf
