Ysaye's Six Sonatas on Viola

May 4, 2024, 7:50 AM ·

Even some of the more die-hard Viola Separatists (as I call them), who are generally against playing violin music on the viola, almost always study violin music (whether on violin itself or a fifth lower on viola) for its technical value. From Kreutzer and Rode etudes to Paganini Caprices (which are now regularly heard at Primrose Competitions), the unaccompanied violin repertoire is certainly the most ‘borrowed’ on viola.

My final viola teacher, Emanuel Vardi, started me on the Bach Sonatas and Partitas and Paganini Caprices as a teenager. I later recorded both sets on viola because I wished there had been some viola recordings available when I was learning them. There were none of the Bach and only Mr. Vardi’s 1965 out-of-print records of the Paganini (which I transferred onto cassettes.)

However Mr. Vardi never suggested to me to learn any Ysaye. Thinking about why, probably the first reason is the Ysaye Sonatas were written after Mr. Vardi was born! They most certainly wouldn’t have been in the repertoires of his own teachers. Secondly, it seemed to me that they were only beginning to become popular back around the time when I was studying with him. I think the first complete recording was made in the year I was born, 1974, by the great violinist Ruggiero Ricci. Today there are around 50 complete recordings (on violin), but if you look at the dates, most of them are from the past two decades.

I had thought of it over the years, but always came to the conclusion that violists don’t need (or want) the Ysaye Sonatas on viola. Bach Sonatas and Partitas and Cello Suites, sure, because there is no unaccompanied Bach specifically for viola. Same with Paganini. (Some say the Casimir-Ney Preludes are our Paganini Caprices. In some ways they are, but they’re generally not as technically difficult.)

But Ysaye? Violists have four solo sonatas by Hindemith, three Reger Suites… what do we need Ysaye for? The viola has a ton of music from the entire 20th Century (and now 21st).

Watching videos of individual movements on viola at YouTube, performed quite nicely by David Rose (1st mvt. of no. 4), Katsiarnya Shapachka (excerpts from no. 2), and Kerson Leong (1st mvt. of no. 1) as well as many viola performances of the Ballade (No. 3, by Christoph Chung, Alfredo Zamarra and more) convinced me to rethink things. I became interested in the whole set and decided this past winter to learn it. Since we’re moving to England this month, I began making videos this January in our teaching studio here in Vermont until the set of six was finished.

In the old days I would have had to sell a record company on the idea! Today I can just set up a computer and upload it to YouTube. We don’t have equipment to edit, so there’s a clunker or two here and there. Blame me and not the viola.

For those who are interested, I hope you enjoy the set on viola! For those who are convinced they could do it better, great, go for it! I think there should be more versions (and I’m sure there will be.) And for those who think it shouldn’t be done at all, I think the horse is already out of the barn!

Here is a link to the entire playlist, with all six sonatas.

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Ysaye's Six Sonatas on Viola

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