Now, quite a number of months are gone since my last blog article, – having many reasons for that. Last summer we had our wonderful opera festival in France after two years break again, and since the fall I am frequently traveling between London, Leipzig and Vienna, not to mention the huge amount of works on my viennese friends’ new viennawindmusic site and of course the last three Ysaÿe works of my ongoing project.
I started to work on both double-instrument Poèmes, Poème Nocturne and Amitié already beginning of last year, however, because of many obstacles mostly involving the correction process, were taking ages. Now, after many proof-readings (and playings) I have the final versions online.
Just a few words about these great pieces…
Poeme Nocturne is a “monster”! It is written for violin & cello with orchestra and this is the piano reduction version, but so it is also a great addition to the piano-trio literature. Perhaps about 20 minutes, it is quite demanding for all three instruments, it has some absolutely gorgeus melodies but it is also moving to Ysaÿe’s “last period” where he was already quite “modern”, he didn’t mind lots of dissonances and he is using his beloved full-tone technique with joy.
Amitié is maybe more known among violinists, perhaps because there is an old recording of it with the Oistrachs. It is also more on the romantic side, reminding his early Poème-s, with enthusiastic cadenzas and lovely melody lines of the main theme. It is a real Amitié (friendship) between two violins.
And finally, after finishing the Divertimento score/parts, I have also the Fantaisie orchestra score and parts ready to go. Wasn’t easy at all, there is a set of hand written parts as base and a score badly legible because it is a negative photocopy… both full of inconsistencies and obvious mistakes/misprints. I used the piano reduction as base, however, with such a huge orchestration it is not easy to compare, some times with missing or even different notes, surprizingly still sounding as a whole, the same.
After such amount of work, I really hope that more violinists (and this time also cellists) will choose to play more of Ysaÿe’s wonderful music!