I was thrilled couple of weeks ago receiving a very nice email from Elmira Darvarova Concert Violinist, former concertmaster of the Metropolitan orchestra in New York, letting me know that she has recorded with her colleagues and just released a CD containing the two Ysaÿe string trios.
I believe, this is a milestone, finally making more attention to Ysaÿe’s chamber music. The CD is available by Naxos and I guess on many online music portals, but on YouTube one can listen also.
It is a very nice recording, all three musicians at highest levels, musically and technically, knowing this somewhat special musical world of Ysaÿe.
She wrote also great program notes, including very interesting anecdotes and to the smallest details of the works.
Naturally, to me it was really nice that she greatly appreciated my contribution to these trios, all my work, to find and correct the trio No. 1 and preparing a first edition of trio No. 2.
Here a couple of sentences from her email:
…together with 2 colleagues (violist Ronald Carbone and cellist Samuel Magill) I have recently recorded both string trios (Op. 33 and Op. 34) by Ysaÿe, from your published editions, for which I, and my colleagues, are extremely grateful to you!…
…Your research and analysis clearly showed us that you had truly located the final versions of both trios. Your article in The Strad last year was tremendously helpful to us, it was fascinating to learn how you located and meticulously analyzed the ultimate, final versions of these trios…
and from the program notes:
Immersed for many years in Ysaÿe’s string trio compositions, as a pioneering performer and publisher, Nandor Szederkényi has been involved since 1995 with Ysaÿe’s String Trio No. 1 known as “Le Chimay”, deciphering the (then) available to him early version of the “Le Chimay” manuscript, performing its Canadian premiere and offering his own 1997 edition to Schott Frères in Belgium, but not until very recently did Nandor Szederkényi locate Ysaÿe’s final manuscript version of String Trio No. 1, Op. 33, a.k.a. “Le Chimay” at the Juilliard School Library, as part of Ysaÿe’s Two String Trios, together with the unpublished Trio No. 2. Since Trio No. 1 had been designated by Ysaÿe as Op. 33, and there is a later Ysaÿe work catalogued as Op. 35, Szederkényi understood that the never-published Trio No. 2 appears to represent Ysaÿe’s Op. 34, and he set out to publish it through his iStrings Editions, together with the second, revised edition of Trio No. 1, Op. 33. A year ago, in 2021, Szederkényi’s detailed article about his findings appeared in The Strad (“On the Trail of a Trio, May 2021), where he announced that both these Ysaÿe manuscripts, stored at the Juilliard School Library, represent a corrected version (‘2me esquisse’), appearing to be the ultimate, for the Trio No. 1, as well as for the Trio No. 2. Edited and recently published by Szederkényi (through iStrings Edition), these final manuscript versions of Ysaÿe’s two string trios (Op. 33 and Op. 34) were recorded (in March 2022) for the first time by us, the performers on this album. We are deeply grateful to Mr. Szederkényi for all his hard work and meticulous research in his indefatigable quest to bring out and publish the final versions of these two Ysaÿe works, Op. 33 and Op. 34. We feel a kinship with Nandor Szederkényi throughout much of his journey on the path to determine and affirm Ysaÿe’s ultimate, crystalized and finalized versions, especially regarding the Trio No. 1, which we initially learned in 2008 from Mr. Szederkényi first edition, published by Schott, and from which edition we performed the New York premiere of the work on November 10, 2008. At the time this composition known as Trio “Le Chimay” had been believed to be the only trio for violin, viola and cello by Ysaÿe, with no particular opus number assigned (a “posthumous” status was designated in Nandor Szederkényi’s first edition, published in 2008 by Schott, and “opus posthume” was stated also in the Gaede Trio edition, published in 2002 by Ries & Erler). Thanks to Nandor Szederkényi’s never-ceasing research and publications, we – the artists of this album – have now registered the world premiere recordings of the ultimate versions of Ysaÿe’s two trios for violin, viola and cello (Op. 33 and Op. 34), and we look forward to performing them in their finalized by their composer versions, as edited and published by Mr. Szederkényi.