Ysaye, Sonata No. 5, 2nd mov. “Danse Rustique”

Eugène-Auguste Ysaye (1858-1931) became the most famous violinist of his day. He spent much of his career teaching at the Brussels Conservatory in his native Belgium and had a major influence on violin technique. He was close friends with his contemporary Claude Debussy, and major composers of the time dedicated works to him. César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A was presented to him as a wedding present in 1886, and it become something of a signature piece in Ysaye’s performances.

Immediately after graduating from the conservatory in Liége, he became principal violin in the Benjamin Bilse beer-hall orchestra. If that sounds unimpressive, know that that orchestra would soon morph into the Berlin Philharmonic. (Now there’s a topic to explore in a future post!)

He also enjoyed a career in conducting. He declined an offer to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1898 but 20 years later accepted the position with the Cincinnati Symphony.

Ysaye’s compositions focus on works for violin. His Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, op. 27, were composed in 1924. Danse Rustique is the second movement in the two-movement Sonata No. 5. Ysaye composed the sonatas expressly to bring some of the sounds of the early 20th century into the genre of unaccompanied works for violin, but you will find this work owes more to late 19th-century Romanticism and its line of works exploring extreme virtuosity.