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First Unitarian Church
June 17, 2018
On the morning of September 26, 1886, Charles Bordes presented a wedding gift from their mutual friend César Franck to violinist Eugene Ysaÿe and his bride Louise Bourdeau de Courtrai.
The gift was Franck's (only) violin sonata which, after a hurried rehearsal with pianist (and Bordes' sister-in-law) Marie-Léontine Bordes-Pène, was premiered at the reception in Arlon, Belgium. (The duo would also give the first public performance later that same year in Brussels.)
The sonata remained in Ysaÿe's repertoire until the end of his performing career, some four decades later. Franck's sonata appears to be the first recorded example of "the gift that keeps on giving".
Nikki Chooi and Lorraine Min closed the first half of Sunday's Eine Kleine Summer Music concert with a spectacular performance of the sonata.
I have always felt the work's opening to be redolent (in much the same way as the slow movement of Ravel's string quartet) of a languid summer's day; for once the weather cooperated and I cannot imagine hearing those first few bars in a more sympathetic context. Min began the sonata slowly, but cast the music in gorgeous tone colours and the occasional, but distinctly audible, birdsong did nothing to detract from the mood. Chooi's initial entry floated into one's consciousness and the rapturous music built to an intense climax before fading away to a lovely close.
The second movement began explosively on the piano (this sonata is regarded as having a rather more technically challenging piano "accompaniment" than most) and both players produced full, rich tones and utilised a rubato so natural as to be almost unnoticeable — Ysaÿe's rubato was one of the aspects of his own playing that was frequently admired. The quieter central section contrasted hugely with the outer music and I'm not sure that I have ever heard the thematic links to the first movement quite so clearly pointed.
The slow movement was simply delicious, bold piano tones and intense violin even in the gentler, more contemplative music.
The final movement features what must be one of the most deceptively memorable themes in all of music, a theme which was still running through my head not just hours, but days later. The music is a wonderful combination of rondo form and canon and here built to an all-enveloping, joyful coda which, justly, brought the audience to its feet.
I first fell in love with this music over fifty years ago: admittedly the version I first encountered in concert was that for cello, but then the cellist on that occasion was Jacqueline du Pré and the pianist Stephen Bishop (later Kovacevich).
I'm not sure I have ever witnessed another performance that quite measured up to that one.
Until now.
Chooi opened the concert with one of Ysaÿe's own compositions, the third of his six sonatas for solo violin. Each was dedicated to one of Ysaÿe's contemporaries and the third bears the name of the great Romanian violinist and composer Georges Enescu.
As a curtain-raiser for the afternoon's performances this could hardly have been bettered: Chooi gave an intense, intensely focused performance featuring excellent tone colours and some delicious and highly appropriately portamento (sliding from one note to the next; it may be out of fashion today, but not a century or more ago).
There was a real improvisatory feeling to the performance which was rhapsodic and highly volatile.
In a word: stunning.
Unfortunately the rescheduling of a previous commitment forced me (once again) to leave at the interval. I have to admit, though, that I'm not sure that the Tchaikovsky could quite, no matter how well played, have lived up to the Ysaÿe or the Franck.
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