Franck Violin Sonata A major, the lovely wedding gift

Franck's violin sonata in a major composed for the lovely wedding gift.
The shade of Marcel Proust hovers over this violin sonatas. Indeed, few nineteenth-century French composers have escaped identification as the model for Vinteuil, the musician who features in À la recherche du pemps perdu. Fauré, Debussy, Saint-Saëns, Franck and d'Indy are the usual suspects. While it is true that Proust took various characteristics from each of them, the one he drew most heavily upon, both as man and artist, was César Franck.

His admiration for Franck's music was to give him the inspiration for Vinteuil's own compositions. He was especially fond of the A major Violin Sonata, in particular the last movement which he insisted on being encored again and again at the midnight recitals given by the musicians he summoned to his cork-lined bedroom.
(I also love the last movement of this sonata. :-) )

The Violin Sonata in A major (1886), written at a time when Franck was at the height of his powers, was a lovely wedding gift to his fellow countryman, the Belgian virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe. It makes brilliant use of the cyclical method he favoured and opens with an undulating theme derived from the initial 'cell'. This cell, variously developed, provides the material taken up by each of the four movements. Passionate in the second movement, it becomes wistful in the third, and, in the concluding Allegretto, emerges as a warm-hearted rondo in the form of a well-shaped canon.

The whole work is characterised by the perfect balance sustained between the two instruments as equal partners. While each of them has opportunities to shine, neither does so at the expense of the other. Ysaÿe gave the first public performance at the Musée Moderne de Peinture, Brussels, in the winter of 1886. By the end of the opening movement night had fallen. Since artificial light was not allowed for fear of harming delicate paintings on the walls, the players could not see the music.
Whereupon Ysaÿe exclaimed: 'Let's get on with it!' and, seconded by his valiant accompanist, gave a superb performance in pitch darkness entirely from memory.
I can imagine playing at Musée Moderne de Peinture, Brussels on this day, and I think Ysaÿe, who plays for the first time as a wedding gift whenever I listen to this sonata. Whoever's playing it......

Franck violin sonata in A major, the lovely wedding gift, is the only work that has ever made him remember his name. It is no exaggeration to say that all the violinists have recorded because it is a famous sonata. Here are the followings, if you choose according to my taste. If you click on the player's name under the picture, it links to Amazon.