During his visit to Paris in the summer of 1885, Ignacy Jan Paderewski became acquainted with the outstanding Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo Sarasate. As he wrote to a friend: ‘I dedicated my Sonata to Sarasate because he liked it and promised to play it. In the meantime, I revised it, especially the first movement, and gave it to Bock to print.’ The Violin Sonata in A minor, Op. 13, published in early 1886 in Berlin, received mixed reviews from critics. After its premiere in Vienna in 1887, local reviewers discerned Scandinavian features in it, pointing to its close affinity with the style of Edvard Grieg. There is no doubt, however, that this three-movement work stands as testimony to the compositional maturity of the twenty-five-year-old Paderewski, who boldly breaks with classical formal patterns. Original melodic invention and daring harmonic ideas secured the Sonata a high position not only in the Polish violin literature.

When Krzysztof Penderecki wrote his Sonata for Violin and Piano in 1953, he was only twenty years old. The work, which through its three-movement structure clearly refers to the classical traditions of the genre, was considered by some critics to be a minor exercise, due to its short duration. Yet it demonstrates an excellent mastery of compositional craftsmanship, as well as Penderecki’s fascination with Dmitri Shostakovich’s style at the time.

The second of the virtuoso Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27 by the outstanding Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe was dedicated to the French violinist Jacques Thibaud. The entire collection of sonatas, dating from 1923, is a retrospective tribute by Ysaÿe to Baroque music. In Sonata No. 2 in A minor, this is signalled by a quotation from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 3 in E major at the beginning. However, the leitmotiv of this four-movement Sonata is the Dies irae melody from the Catholic funeral mass.

César Franck’s Sonata in A major for violin and piano, dedicated to Eugène Ysaÿe, was a gift to the outstanding violinist on the occasion of his marriage to Louise Bourdau (28 September 1886). Apparently, after a short rehearsal, the work was immediately presented to the wedding guests. The official premiere took place shortly afterwards (on 16 December in Brussels). The four-part Sonata refers to Ferenc Liszt’s original concept of linking all the movements of a work with common thematic material that undergoes transformations.
 

Grzegorz Zieziula