Ysaye listening on Future Radio


There is a rare chance to hear one of Eugène Ysaÿe's sonatas for solo violin on Future Radio this Sunday. My Overgrown Path programme takes a journey from Bach to Belgium and frames Ysaÿe's Sonata No. 2 in A Minor with Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G minor and mighty Partita No 3 in E major. The Ysaÿe Sonatas are inspired by Bach, and the juxtaposition of Ysaÿe's Second Sonata with the E major Partita in the programme mirrors the Belgium composer's statement and restatement of themes from the Bach work. Thomas Zehetmair plays the Ysaÿe and the two Bach works are performed by Mark Lubotsky from Brilliant Classic's invaluable Bach Edition which offers all the composer's works on 155 CDs at a very affordable price. Listen at 5.00pm UK time on April 27 with a repeat at 12.50am on April 28.

Ysaÿe was born in Liège in Belgium in 1858, and after graduation became principal violin of the Benjamin Bilse beer-hall orchestra, which found a home in a disused roller-skating rink and became the Berlin Philharmonic - music was more fun back then. You can hear music from another composer from the Low Countries on Future Radio on May 11 when I play extracts from another rarely heard work, the Missa Pro Defunctis by the 16th century Flemish composer Jacobus de Kerle. The performers are the Belgium based Huelgas-Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel who featured here last year in the story of the work that inspired Tallis' Spem in alium. And there is new music from Belgium here.

Photo from the souk in Marrakech, Morocco (c) On An Overgrown Path 2008. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Comments

Pliable said…
Disused roller-skating rinks and classical music seem to have a mutual attraction, see my article on the BBC's famous Maida Vale studios -

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2007/01/bbc-to-sell-off-its-main-classical.html
10:19 am
Pliable said…
And ironically, when the Berlin Philharmonie was destroyed by bombs in November 1943, the BPO played in the Admiralpalast, which had previously been an ice-rink -

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2006/09/furtwngler-and-forgotten-new-music.html
10:26 am
Pliable said…
Good to see the Belgians still having fun -

http://current.com/items/88918721_1_360_students_in_leuven_belgium_set_mentos_diet_coke_fountain_record
7:11 pm
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