GLS Symposium - Eugene Ysaye and Musical Dialogue
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Eugène Ysaÿe and Musical Dialogue
The Belgian violin virtuoso, composer and conductor Eugène Ysaÿe occupies a towering
position in the history of musical performance.1 During his own lifetime he was considered not
only the greatest violinist living2, but the greatest violinist ever, a reputation that endures today.
He was the great bridge between the 19th and 20th century in terms of violin technique and
influenced over three generations of violinists.
Ysaÿe was born in Liége, Belgium, in 1858 to a musical family and received his first
musical training from his father, Nicholas, a musician himself, and later studied violin at the
Liége Conservatory. His most important teachers were the Belgian violinists Henri Vieuxtemps
and Henri Wieniawski. Ysaÿe quickly became recognized as one of the great violinists and
secured his reputation as a great musical artist. He was equally popular in both Europe and
America, where he performed frequently.
Ysaÿe gradually began to shift focus away from concretizing to conducting. The onset of
World War One found Ysaÿe at the height of his career. He returned to Belgium in 1922 after
four years as the director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, after which he rarely performed
publicly on the violin, but continued to compose and conduct until his death in 1931.
1
Stockhem, Michel. Preface. Ysaÿe, Eugène. Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27. Ed. by Norbert Stockhem.
Munich, Germany: Urtext. 2004, V.
2
Niles, Laurie. “Ray Iwazumi on Ysaÿe’s Sonatas No. 2 and No. 5.” Violinst.com. 16 June, 2011. Web. Jan. 2012.
GLS Symposium - Eugene Ysaye and Musical Dialogue
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Ysaÿe reached his peak as a composer at a time of artistic and personal upheaval.3 His
strength and health grew progressively worse and his ability on the violin began to decline.
Unable to play the violin, he occupied himself with composing for his instrument. Ysaÿe grew
concerned, yet ever hopeful, for the future of violin playing. Though thoroughly trained in
music, he never received formal instruction in composition. In his youth he composed concerti
and mazurkas in the style of his teachers Vieuxtemps and Wieniawski, while at the end of his
career he wrote more serious works. Despite his lack of formal tuition, his compositions are
masterworks, demonstrating the intuition of a violinist with the imagination of a composer. His
set of six sonatas for solo violin is the culmination of his creative powers as a composer and a
violinist.
Compositionally, Ysaÿe was influenced by some of the prevailing artistic movements of
his time: impressionism, symbolism and surrealism.4 As both a performer and composer, Ysaÿe
made significant contributions to violin technique and violin literature. Ysaÿe scaled new heights
on the violin, but surprisingly showed little concert for the dissemination of his compositions.
His modesty over his compositions combined with his stature as a violinist worked to the
detriment of his compositional oeuvre,5 which after his death fell into obscurity.
The Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op. 27, were composed between 1923 and 1924 in
Ysaÿe’s seaside home Belgium. The inspiration for the sonatas came after Ysaÿe attended a
recital given by Joseph Szigeti which featured the G Minor Sonata BWV 1001 by J.S. Bach
(1685-1750). Ysaÿe himself was long occupied with the works of Bach and frequently performed
3
Stockhem, V.
4
Niles.
5
Stockhem
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the D minor Chaconne from the Second Partita, BWV 1004, in public.6 “Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas
were conceived as a modern-day response to Bach’s music and a renewal of the message they
contain. But they are also a response to everything that had changed in music and violin playing
in the mean-time."7
The six sonatas are dedicated to six of Ysaÿe’s younger violinist colleagues: Joseph
Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud, Georges Enesco, Fritz Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom and Manual
Quiroga. All six violinists frequently expressed their admiration of Ysaÿe and in return received
this gesture of thanks from the great master at the end of his performing career. Ysaÿe’s goal was
to depict the personality of each of the dedicatees, their preferred repertoire, or to shared
memories,8 as well as to respond to characteristics of Bach’s violin compositions. Each sonata
contains references to the dedicatees, however not all references can be deciphered, lending the
entire set an air of mystery. Ysaÿe spent time and played with each of his six colleagues,
sometimes taking the violin, viola and even cello parts in string quartets, and was familiar
enough with each to write jokes, and even criticisms, into the music.
The sonatas also demonstrate Ysaÿe’s hope for the future of violin. Szigeti claimed that
the compositions meant far more to Ysaÿe than as merely compositions, but as a way for him to
perpetuate his own elusive violin technique.9 A musical score can reveal thought process and
provide understanding for the aesthetic and technical preferences and priorities of the artist.
Furthermore, recordings of Ysaÿe are rare, and so his compositions, marked scores and students
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
Niles.
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are the primary way his technique and performance wisdom are passed on. Ysaÿe also created
his own set of symbols to indicate specific directions to violinists. Ysaÿe’s technique is present
in his fingerings and editing of the sonatas. A violinist learning his compositions should learn his
symbols and try his suggestions. His suggestions don’t work for every violinist (Ysaÿe was a big
man with large hands), but it will provide insight into his intent.
While the spirit of Bach hovers over these sonatas, Ysaÿe wrote, “I allowed free
improvisation to reign. Each sonata constitutes a kind of little poème where I abandoned the
violin to its fantasies. I wanted to associate musical interest with grand qualities of true
virtuosity, a much neglected association since instrumentalists no longer venture into
composition and are abandoning this task to those who do not know the resources and secrets of
the medium.”10 Ysaÿe is lamenting that violinists no longer wrote for their instrument, which is
reflected in violin music.
Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas are truly violinistic, even more so than Bach's on which they are
based. The technical difficulty of the sonatas is tremendous, and surpassed by the emotional and
artistic demands. Ysaÿe blends characteristics from his own period such as free use of
dissonances, freely moving between major and minor tonalities, whole tone scales and
microtones with eighteenth century characteristics. These contrasting aspects of music, past and
present, prove to be mutually compatible.
The Second Sonata in A Minor, “Obsession,” is dedicated to Jacques Thibaud (1880–
1953), a French violinist known for his tender lyricism and his interpretations of Mozart,
Beethoven and contemporary French music. Thibaud and Ysaÿe were close friends, Thibaud
10
Niles.
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having lived with Ysaÿe on several occasions and even borrowed his Guarnerius and
Stradivarius in emergencies. This generosity shows Ysaÿe’s deep admiration of his friend.
The Second Sonata is notable for its quotations of the Preludio from Bach’s Partita in E
Major, BWV 1006. Both Ysaÿe and Thibaud shared an obsession with Bach. Thibaud used the
Bach Preludio for daily practice,11 but refused to perform it in public, convinced that he would
make a memory slip and never make it out of the labyrinth of notes. In Ysaÿe’s Prelude, we can
hear Thibaud “practicing” the Bach, with excerpts from Bach’s Preludio, sometimes quoted
directly, sometimes altered or modified, followed by outbursts (marked brutalement in the
score), the equivalent of musical cursing, when Thibaud can’t remember what comes next (figure
1). To further taunt Thibaud, Ysaÿe inserts the Dies Irae from the Catholic Mass for the Dead
(figure 2). The sonata, completed in July 1923, consists of four movements, Obsession; Prelude,
Malinconia, Danse des Ombres; Sarabande, and Les Furies. The Bach quotation appears only in
the first movement, but the Dies Irae quotation unites the four movements.
Figure 1. Excerpt, Prelude, m. 1–9.
11
Ryu, Ji-Yeon. “Music Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire.” Thesis. Florida State University, 2010,
44.
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Musical borrowing is a practice that incorporates an exact quote or a segment from a
preexisting work, and has been a popular compositional technique throughout music history.
However, the twentieth century saw a particular development in this technique.
Musical
borrowing can include direct quotations, quoting segments, distorting quotes, or borrowing
musical styles and idioms.12
In his Second Sonata, Ysaÿe uses musical borrowing from Bach's Preludio and the Dies
Irae in several ways. He uses direct quotes, distorted quotes, and borrows musical styles and
idioms.
Ysaÿe’s Prelude is modeled on Bach's Preludio, using the same tonal areas and
harmonic relationships, the same perpetual motion effect, similar textures and violinistic
techniques, such as string crossings, scalar patterns, pedal tones, and bariolage bowing. Where
Bach implied polyphony within a single melodic line, Ysaÿe hides his melody in a texture of
sixteenth notes, creating compound lines out of a single monophonic line.
The use of quotations carries symbolic significance. The Preludio quotations symbolize
Bach and his immeasurable achievements in music. Ysaÿe is all too aware of Bach’s towering
presence, engaging in a conversation with Bach in which Ysaÿe provides both voices. The
quotations both act as homage to Bach, and also an acute awareness of Bach. The second symbol
is the Dies Irae theme, long a symbol for death. The Dies Irae has been used by many
composers, notably Berlioz in his Symphony Fantastique, and occupies a prominent place in our
musical imaginations. The Dies Irae and Bach quotations complement each other: the Dies Irae
theme and all its associations with death contrast with the bright, celebratory and life affirming
12
Ibid.
GLS Symposium - Eugene Ysaye and Musical Dialogue
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Bach quotation. Furthermore, all three themes share a similar contour and melodic movement,
uniting and propelling the music forward.
The sonata is aptly subtitled Obsession, and contains several psychological aspects. The
obsession could refer to Ysaÿe’s obsession with Bach, or the obsession all violinists have with
Bach.13 Bach is a cornerstone of violin repertoire, and all violinists are familiar with his solo
violin sonatas and partitas, and come to know the violin through these works. Because the works
are unaccompanied, the violinist develops a very personal relationship with the music, usually
performing the works from memory. In his compositions for violin, it is impossible to escape
Bach’s music and influence. The Dies Irae, combined with the fast tempo and use of accents,
lends the piece a demonical madness, a real obsession with Bach and plays into the idea of the
possessed violin virtuoso. Ysaÿe also creates the impression of being literally bound by Bach,
with the real and fictitious quotes, suggesting again that his obsession with Bach is inescapable.
Despite the symbolism and appearance of a story, Ysaÿe claimed that the piece has no program,
or extramusical story.14
The psychological experience of playing the piece is considerable. Many violin
techniques used by Ysaÿe, such as bariolage bowing, are first learned through practicing Bach,
and violinists retain this kinesthetic musical knowledge.15 Ysaÿe makes subtle changes to these
learned techniques that may not be heard by the audience, but that can be felt by violinist. The
violinist must reverse violin techniques ingrained from practicing Bach.
For example, the
opening quote is played piano, at the tip of the bow, rather than forte as Bach called for. Another
13
Greitzer, Mary Lee. “Tormented Voices”. Diss. Harvard University, 2007.
14
Niles.
15
Greitzer.
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example occurs during the bariolage sequence (m. 20) where Ysaÿe calls for accents on the
downbows, where Bach’s accents were on the upbows (figure 2). The body becomes
symbolically divided as the right arm moves to Bach and the left had plays the Dies Irae.16 The
Bach quotations, Ysaÿe’s brutalement response and Dies Irae theme all share similarities in
contour and the same initial half step movement. The Dies Irae theme appears with the same
bariolage bowing technique that Bach used (figure 2), further developing the relationship
between the Bach and Dies Irae quotations.
Figure 2. Excerpt, Prelude, m. 20–21.
Dies Irae theme played with bariolage bowing technique. Accents are placed on the
downbows of each beat to bring out the Dies Irae theme.
Ysaÿe's set of Six Sonatas initiates a dialogue that transcends its historical context.
Through his composition, Ysaÿe is creating a dialogue with the past as well as the future. His
sonatas look to the past, picking up the conversation where Bach left off. He fully engages the
body and imagination of the violinist, providing a continual dialogue that each violinist can
participate in. By dedicating the works to his younger colleagues, he is leaving the dialogue open
for the future.
16
Ibid.
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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bachmann, Alberto. An Encyclopedia of the Violin. Ed. Frederick Freedman. New York: Da
Capo, 1966.
Curty, Andrey. “A Pedagogical Approach to Eugène Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Op.
27.” Diss. University of Georgia, 2003.
Greitzer, Mary Lee. “Tormented Voices”. Diss. Harvard University, 2007.
Hoatson, Karen D. “Culmination of the Belgian Violin Traditions: The Innovative Style of
Eugène Ysaÿe.” Diss. University of California, Los Angeles, 1999.
Niles, Laurie. “Ray Iwazumi on Ysaÿe’s Sonatas No. 2 and No. 5.” Violinst.com. 16 June, 2011.
Web. Jan. 2012.
Ryu, Ji-Yeon. “Music Borrowing in Contemporary Violin Repertoire.” Thesis. Florida State
University, 2010.
Slonimsky, Nicolas. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. New York: Schirmer, 1992.
Stockhem, Michel. Preface. Ysaÿe, Eugène. Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27. Ed. By
Norbert Gertsch. Munich, Germany: Urtext. 2004.
Wang, Yu-Chi. “A Survey of the Unaccompanied Violin Repertoire, Centering on Works by
J.S. Bach and Eugène Ysaÿe.” Diss. University of Maryland, College Park, 2005.
Ysaÿe, Eugène. Six Sonatas for Violin Solo, Op. 27. Ed. By Norbert Gertsch. Munich, Germany:
Urtext. 2004.
Ysaÿe, Eugène. Sonatas, Violin, Op. 27. Perf. Thomas Zehetmair. Rec. Sept. 2002. ECM,
2004.
GLS Symposium - Eugene Ysaye and Musical Dialogue
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“Ysaÿe, Eugène.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Vol. 27. 2nd Ed. Ed.
Stanley Sadie. New York: Grove, 2001.
Ysaÿe, Eugène. Vengrove plays Bach, Shchedrin, Ysaÿe. Perf. Maxim Vengrove. EMI, 2002.
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