Sonata in A major, Op.13 [1875]

César Franck would not have been at all surprised to hear his Violin Sonata in A major played on a cello. Gabriel Fauré, however, would have been amazed to hear his played that way. But if the Fauré Sonata can be arranged for flute - there is a surprisingly successful version by the French flautist Emmanuel Pahud - it can surely be done on the cello. Certainly, having tried it out, Yo Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott came to the conclusion that it worked very well. They have not only performed it on several occasionas already but have also recorded it with the Franck Sonata and two other pieces from the French violin-and piano repertoire.

Nothing Fauré had written before 1875 suggested that he would be capable of composing the assured and idiomatic Violin Sonata which he all but completed within a few summer months in Normandy that year. He did have the benefit of the use of a friend’s country retreat on the coast at Sainte-Adresse and he did have the advantage of advice from one or two violinists - including the dedicatee of the work, Paul Viardot, brother of the Marianne Viardot to whom Fauré was (briefly) to become engaged a year or so later. Even so the enthusiastic reception of the Violin Sonata at a concert of the Société Nationale in January 1877, after every Parisian publisher had turned it down, surprised the composer no less than it surprised his colleagues in the audience. “ The success of my Sonata this evening exceeded all my hopes!!!” he wrote on the day of the first performance.

Among the less obvious reasons for its success - apart, that is, from such attractions as its shapely melodic lines and its resourceful scoring - is the subtlety of its construction. Its four movements are as thoroughly unified as any cyclic composition but discreetly and spontaneously, with nothing of the deliberate thematic manoeuvring later to be practised by the followers of César Franck.

Not surprisingly, the main theme of the first movement is basic to the economy. It appears in two versions - as the piano introduces it in the opening bars and as the string instrument takes it up on its first entry - both with an immediate melodic appeal and both with a long-term structural function. The rising scale figure which emerges at an early stage from the cello version of the theme is fruitful too, not least when the cello turns it upside down and quietly presents it as the second subject in E major. Both versions of the first subject are thoroughly developed, making way for the second subject only at a late stage, and both are awarded to the cello in the recapitulation.

The melody which rises from the dark D minor harmonies on the piano in the opening bars of the Andante is a clear reflection of a phrase in the piano version of the main theme of the first movement: the resemblance is not only in the melodic intervals but also in the syncopated rhythm. A variant of the same phrase is presented (in inversion) as the second subject - a theme which, though evasive about its true tonality at this stage, plays a prominent part later on in changing the key to D major and bringing the movement to an end in poetic tranquillity.

“The Scherzo was encored so insistently,” wrote Fauré after the first performance, “that we had no choice but to play it again.” It is, indeed, delightfully scored for violin and when transferred to cello much of it has to be played at the original pitch, to preserve its light touch. A study in staccato bowing and displaced rhythmic accents, all of it - including the contrastingly lyrical melody in the middle - is based on themes reminiscent of the scalic material in the first movement. The transition from the slower F sharp minor middle section back to the A major Allegro vivo is most artfully contrived.

If the audience at the Société Nationale was less enthusiastic about the Allegro quasi presto finale - “which people found too abrupt” - it could be because they wanted the culmination of the structural strategy plainly spelled out, as Franck would so triumphantly spell it out it in his Violin Sonata ten years later. Fauré, however, prefers to avoid that kind of thing. His references back to the first theme of the first movement are as discreet as, for example, the short phrase on the second entry of the cello. As far as the main themes of the movement are concerned, the scalic material predominates in a brilliantly sustained impetus towards the last page where, preferring grace to grandiloquence, he inserts a delicately articulated coda just before the fortissimo final bars.

Although it created a sensation on its first performance in Paris in 1877, and although it has retained a prominent place in the repertoire ever since, Fauré’s Violin Sonata in A major has still not received due recognition as a major historical landmark. It is generally agreed that it emerged more or less out of the blue at a time when the violin sonata was virtually extinct in French music and it is universally acknowledged that it was written as long as ten years before Franck’s masterly example in the same key. What is not understood is that so much of the Franck Sonata is anticipated in the earlier work that it is Fauré rather than Franck who should be credited as the epoch-maker in this respect.

Nothing Fauré had written before 1875 suggested that he would be capable of composing the assured and idiomatic Violin Sonata which he all but completed within a few summer months in Normandy that year. He did have the benefit of the use of a friend’s country retreat on the coast at Sainte-Adresse and he did have the advantage of advice from one or two violinists - including the dedicatee of the work, Paul Viardot, brother of the Marianne Viardot to whom Fauré was (briefly) to become engaged a year or so later. Even so the enthusiastic reception of the Violin Sonata at a concert of the Société Nationale in January 1877 - after every Parisian publisher had turned it down - surprised the composer no less than it surprised his colleagues in the audience. “The success of my Sonata this evening exceeded all my hopes!!!” he wrote on the day of the first performance.

    Among the less obvious reasons for its success - apart, that is, from such attractions as its shapely melodic lines and its resourceful scoring - is the subtlety of its construction. Its four movements are as thoroughly unified as any cyclic composition but discreetly and spontaneously, with nothing of the deliberate thematic manoeuvring later to be practised by César Franck and his followers.

Not surprisingly, the main theme of the first movement is basic to the economy. It appears in two versions - as the piano introduces it in the opening bars and as the violin takes it up on its first entry - both with an immediate melodic appeal and both with a long-term structural function. The rising scalic figure which emerges at an early stage from the violin version is fruitful too, not least when the violin turns it upside down and quietly presents it as the second subject in E major. Both versions of the first subject are thoroughly developed, making way for the second subject only at a late stage, and both are awarded to the violin in the recapitulation.

The melody which rises from the dark D minor harmonies on the piano in the opening bars of the Andante is, as has often been stated, an arpeggiated diminished seventh. More to the point, it is also a clear reflection of a phrase in the piano version of the main theme of the first movement not only in its melodic intervals but also in its syncopated rhythm. A variant of the same phrase is presented (in inversion) as the second subject - a theme which, though evasive about its true tonality at this stage, plays a prominent part later on in changing the key to D major and bringing the movement to an end in poetic tranquillity.

“The Scherzo was encored so insistently,” wrote Fauré after the first performance, “that we had no choice but to play it again.” It is, indeed, a delightfully scored study in staccato bowing and displaced rhythmic accents, all of it - including the contrastingly lyrical violin melody in the middle - based on themes reminiscent of the scalic material in the first movement. The transition from the slower F sharp minor middle section back to the A major Allegro vivo is most artfully contrived.

    If the audience at the Société Nationale was less enthusiastic about the Allegro quasi presto finale - “which people found too abrupt” - it could be because they wanted the culmination of the structural strategy plainly spelled out, as Franck would so triumphantly spell it out it in his Violin Sonata ten years later. Fauré, however, prefers to avoid that kind of thing. His references back to the first theme of the first movement are as discreet as, for example, the short phrase on the second entry of the violin. As far as the main themes of the movement are concerned, the scalic material predominates in a brilliantly sustained impetus towards the last page where, preferring grace to grandiloquence, he inserts a delicately articulated coda just before the fortissimo final bars.

arranged for flute and piano by Emmanuel Pahud

Allegro molto

Andante

Allegro vivo

Allegro quasi presto

Few French composers in the second half of the nineteenth century would even have thought of writing a sonata for flute and piano. Violin sonatas were rare enough even though the violin had none of the flute’s then generally acknowledged limitations in dynamic range, sustaining power and expressive variety. No one would have thought the flute capable, for example, of mixing it with the piano as the violin does in the turbulent second movement of Franck’s Sonata in A major. The fact that this kind of thing is no longer a problem is an indication of advances not only in the technology of the instrument but also in the art of playing it.

While the Franck Violin Sonata in A major is seen as a landmark in the development of French chamber music, the importance of Fauré’s in the same key tends to be overlooked. In fact, the Fauré work is the more original of the two in that it emerged out of the blue at a time when the violin sonata was virtually extinct in France, anticipating several essential aspects of the Franck Sonata by ten years or so.

Nothing Fauré had written before 1875 suggested that he would be capable of composing the assured and idiomatic Violin Sonata which he all but completed within a few summer months in Normandy that year. Even so the enthusiastic reception of the Violin Sonata at a concert of the Société Nationale in January 1877 - after every Parisian publisher had turned it down - surprised the composer no less than it surprised his colleagues in the audience. “ The success of my Sonata this evening exceeded all my hopes!!!” he wrote on the day of the first performance.

Among the less obvious reasons for its success - apart, that is, from such attractions as its shapely melodic lines and its resourceful scoring - is the subtlety of its construction. Its four movements are as thoroughly unified as any cyclic composition but discreetly and spontaneously, with nothing of the deliberate thematic manoeuvring later to be practised by César Franck and his followers.

Not surprisingly, the main theme of the first movement is basic to the economy. It appears in two versions - as the piano introduces it in the opening bars and as (on this occasion) the flute takes it up on its first entry - both with an immediate melodic appeal and both with a long-term structural function. The rising scalic figure which emerges at an early stage from the flute version is fruitful too, not least when the flute turns it upside down and quietly presents it as the second subject in E major. Both versions of the first subject are thoroughly developed, making way for the second subject only at a late stage, and both are awarded to the flute in the recapitulation.

The melody which rises from the dark D minor harmonies on the piano in the opening bars of the Andante is, as has often been stated, an arpeggiated diminished seventh. More to the point, it is also a clear reflection of a phrase in the piano version of the main theme of the first movement not only in its melodic intervals but also in its syncopated rhythm. A variant of the same phrase is presented (in inversion) as the second subject - a theme which, though evasive about its true tonality at this stage, plays a prominent part later on in changing the key to D major and bringing the movement to an end in poetic tranquillity.

“The Scherzo was encored so insistently,” wrote Fauré after the first performance, “that we had no choice but to play it again.” It is, indeed, a delightfully scored study in staccato articulaton and displaced rhythmic accents, all of it - including the contrastingly lyrical flute melody in the middle - based on themes reminiscent of the scalic material in the first movement. The transition from the slower F sharp minor middle section back to the A major Allegro vivo is most artfully contrived.

If the audience at the Société Nationale was less enthusiastic about the Allegro quasi presto finale - “which people found too abrupt” - it could be because they wanted the culmination of the structural strategy plainly spelled out, as Franck would so triumphantly spell it out it in his Violin Sonata ten years later. Fauré, however, prefers to avoid that kind of thing. His references back to the first theme of the first movement are as discreet as, for example, the short phrase on the flute’s second entry. As far as the main themes of the movement are concerned, the scalic material predominates in a brilliantly sustained impetus towards the last page where, preferring grace to grandiloquence, he inserts a delicately articulated coda just before the fortissimo final bars.