Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Continuo “Devil’s Trill” (arr. Kreisler)
Giuseppe TARTINI
Born April 8, 1692, Pirano, Slovenia
Died February 26, 1770, Padua, Italy

The life of Giuseppe Tartini reads like something out of a novel rather than a music history text. As a boy, he learned to play the violin and to fence and was so good at both that he supported himself at law school by giving violin and fencing lessons–he even thought briefly of making a career as a fencing-master. But fate intervened, as it so often does: at age 20, Tartini eloped with one of his violin students, only to discover that his youthful bride was under the protection of her uncle, the archbishop of Padua, who came after Tartini with a vengeance. The young violin-and-fencing teacher had to flee Padua for Assisi, where he hid in a monastery. Only after the archbishop had calmed down (which took two years) could Tartini return to Padua. He had used his time in the cloister to study composition, and he now devoted himself completely to music, becoming music director of Saint Anthony’s in Padua and eventually founding a violin school; this became so famous that it attracted students from all over Europe, earning it the nickname “School of the Nations.” A prolific composer (about 350 works survive), Tartini devoted himself to mathematical speculation and studies in musical theory during his later years.

His most famous work is the Violin Sonata in G Minor, which Tartini said was inspired when the devil appeared to him one night in a dream and played it through for him; the next day Tartini wrote down what he could remember of the sonata he had heard in his dream. The music acquired the nickname “Devil’s Trill” from the fiendishly-difficult trilled passages in its last movement–many is the violinist who, faced with having to play these passages, has been quite ready to agree that this music did in fact come straight from the devil. The sonata’s difficulties lie not just in the last movement’s famous trills, for the violinist must also be able to execute graceful string crossings, double-stops, quick grace notes, and the sudden alternation of a cantabile line with fiery attacks. Furthermore, the violin plays during every second of this music.

The “Devil’s Trill” is in three movements. The opening Larghetto affetuoso, somber and wistful, gives way to an Allegro that alternates dramatic gestures with fluid and flowing passages demanding the most poised bow arm possible. The famous last movement is actually two movements in one, for Tartini alternates the opening Grave and the Allegro assai, with its infamous trills. What makes these trills so difficult is that the violinist must simultaneously play a bowed melody on another string; near the close Tartini has the violinist break away for a long solo cadenza before a grand close on the Grave melody.

The “Devil’s Trill” is one of the great violin sonatas, but Tartini was not fully satisfied with it. Much later, he wrote to a friend: “The piece I then composed, ‘The Devil’s Sonata,’ although the best I ever wrote, how far was it below the one I heard in my dream!”

Violin Sonata in A Major
Cesar FRANCK
Born December 10, 1822, Liege
Died November 8, 1890, Paris

Composed in 1886, the Violin Sonata in A Major is one of the finest examples of Franck’s use of cyclic form, a technique he had adapted from his friend Franz Liszt, in which themes from one movement are transformed and used over subsequent movements. The Violin Sonata is a particularly ingenious instance of this technique: virtually the entire sonata is derived from the quiet and unassuming opening of the first movement, which then evolves endlessly across the sonata. Even when a new theme seems to arrive, it will gradually be revealed as a subtle variant of one already heard.

The piano’s quiet fragmented chords at the beginning of the Allegretto ben moderato suggest a theme-shape that the violin takes over as it enters: this will be the thematic cell of the entire sonata. The piano has a more animated second subject (it takes on the shape of the germinal theme as its proceeds), but the gently-rocking violin figure from the opening dominates this movement, and Franck reminds the performers constantly to play molto dolce, sempre dolce, dolcissimo.

The mood changes completely at the fiery second movement, marked passionato, and some critics have gone so far as to claim that this Allegro is the true first movement and that the opening Allegretto should be regarded as an introduction to this movement. In any case, this movement contrasts its blazing opening with more lyric episodes, and listeners will detect the original theme-shape flowing through some of these.

The Recitativo–Fantasia is the most original movement in the sonata. The piano’s quiet introduction seems at first a re-visiting of the germinal theme, though it is–ingeniously–a variant of the passionato opening of the second movement. The violin makes its entrance with an improvisation-like passage (this is the fantasia of the title), and the entire movement is quite free in both structure and expression: moments of whimsy alternate with passionate outbursts.

After the expressive freedom of the third movement, the finale restores order with pristine clarity: it is a canon in octaves, with one voice following the other at the interval of a measure. The stately canon theme, marked dolce cantabile, is a direct descendant of the sonata’s opening theme, and as this movement proceeds it recalls thematic material from earlier movements. Gradually, the music takes on unexpected power and drives to a massive coda and a thunderous close.

Franck wrote this sonata for his fellow Belgian, the great violinist Eugene Ysaÿe, who gave the première in Brussels in November 1886. The composer Vincent D’Indy recalled that première: “The violin and piano sonata was performed . . . in one of the rooms of the Museum of Modern Painting at Brussels. The seance, which began at three o’clock, had been very long, and it was rapidly growing dark. After the first Allegretto of the sonata, the performers could scarcely read the music. Now the official regulations forbade any light whatever in rooms which contained paintings. Even the striking of a match would have been matter for offense. The public was about to be asked to leave, but the audience, already full of enthusiasm, refused to budge. Then Ysaÿe was heard to strike his music stand with his bow, exclaiming [to the pianist], “Allons! Allons!” [Let’s go!] And then, unheard-of marvel, the two artists, plunged in gloom . . . performed the last three movements from memory, with a fire and passion the more astounding to the listeners in that there was an absence of all externals which could enhance the performance. Music, wondrous and alone, held sovereign sway in the darkness of night.”

Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor for Unaccompanied Violin, BWV1004
Johann Sebastian BACH
Born March 21, 1685, Eisenach
Died July 28, 1750, Leipzig

The Partita No. 2 in D Minor has become the most famous of Bach’s six unaccompanied works, for it concludes with the Chaconne, one of the pinnacles of the violin literature. While the first four movements present the expected partita sequence, Bach springs a surprise by closing with a movement longer that the first four movements combined. The Chaconne offers some of the most intense music Bach ever wrote, and it has worked its spell on musicians everywhere for the last three centuries: beyond the countless recordings for violin, it is currently available in performances by guitar, cello, lute, and viola, as well as in piano transcriptions by Brahms, Busoni, and Raff.

A chaconne is one of the most disciplined forms in music: it is built on a ground bass in triple meter over which a melodic line is repeated and varied. A chaconne demands great skill from a performer under any circumstances, but it becomes unbelievably complex on the unaccompanied violin, which must simultaneously suggest the ground bass and project the melodic variations above it. Even with the flatter bridge and more flexible bow of Bach’s day, some of this music borders on the unplayable, and it is more difficult still on the modern violin, with its more rounded bridge and concave bow.

This makes Bach’s Chaconne sound like supremely cerebral music–and it is–but the wonder is that this music manages to be so expressive at the same time. The four-bar ground bass repeats 64 times during the quarter-hour span of the Chaconne, and over it Bach spins out gloriously varied music, all the while keeping these variations firmly anchored on the ground bass. At the center section, Bach moves into D major, and here the music relaxes a little, content to sing happily for awhile; after the calm nobility of this interlude, the quiet return to D minor sounds almost disconsolate. Bach drives the Chaconne to a great climax and a restatement of the ground melody at the close.

Saltarelle, Opus 18, No. 4 (arr. Kreisler)
Légende, Opus 17
Variations on an Original Theme for Violin, Opus 15
Henryk WIENIAWSKI Born July 10, 1835, Lublin
Died March 31, 1880, Moscow

Henryk Wieniawski was one of the great nineteenth-century violin virtuosos, said to be second only to Paganini in the brilliance and accuracy of his playing. Certainly his brief life (he died at 44) was full of adventure: after training in Paris, he spent twelve years (1860-72) as solo violinist and court concertmaster to the czar in St. Petersburg, then made an exhausting concert tour of the United States with pianist Anton Rubinstein that took him as far as California. He return to Europe to teach at the Brussels Conservatory.

Like most nineteenth-century virtuosos, Wieniawski also composed, and a few of his works (he wrote almost exclusively for the violin) remain in the repertory today: the Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Minor and the Scherzo-Tarantelle continue to be favorites of audiences and performers. This recital concludes with three of Wieniawski’sworks, all composed relatively early in his career. The Saltarelle was originally one of Wieniawski’s eight Études-caprices, written for violin with the accompaniment of a second violin. That version has been forgotten, but this music lives on in an arrangement for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler. A saltarellewas originally an Italian dance that involved jumping, and Kreisler adopted that title for his arrangement of this brilliant music, which is full of an energy that dances along triple rhythms.

Wienisawski composed his Légende in Leipzig when he was 25, just before he went to Russia. This music has remained on the edge of the violin repertory–it was a favorite half a century ago, but seems to have been overshadowed more recently by works of greater brilliance. The title does not refer to a specific legend; rather, it suggests a romantic atmosphere. Légende is built on two theme-groups, both lyric and both beautifully written for the violin. A murmuring introduction gives way to the violin’s singing entrance; the more animated center section, in which the violin is double-stopped continuously, rises to a climax, and the music subsides to close on the opening material.

Wieniawski’s Variations on an Original Theme date from 1854, when the composer was only 19, and this music offers precisely that combination of tunefulness and blistering virtuosity that made him so popular a performer. The Variations open with an extended introduction marked Maestoso in which all alone the violin lays out a grand statement of the theme, or–more accurately–a variation of the theme; it is soon joined by the piano for the rest of the rather extroverted introduction. When the theme itself finally appears, it sounds almost innocent in its simplicity–Wieniawski marks this statement con grazia–and there follow three extended variations that allow a violinist to show his mettle: these feature extended passages in artificial harmonics and passages written in thirds, octaves, and tenths (Wieniawski must have had huge hands). The Finale is a fast waltz, and Wieniawski rounds matters off with a coda marked Allegro vivace.