Poème élégiaque Op.12 (1892–3)

Completed in 1893 and dedicated to Gabriel Fauré, who was very much alive at the time, the Poème élégiaque seems to have been inspired not by any particular evidence of mortality but by a general fin de siècle melancholy. It corresponded so closely with the mood of the time, in fact, that it inspired Ernest Chausson’s famous Poème, which shares with it not only the chromatic harmonies inherited by both composers from César Franck and not only certain technical and structural details but also the poetic atmosphere.

Up to this point in his career, Ysaÿe, one of the greatest violinist of his day, had been associated as a composer with virtuoso music. But now he produced a work of deep seriousness where virtuosity, although it is not excluded, is applied only for expressive purposes. Scordatura is a virtuoso device but here, where the soloist is required to tune the    G-string a whole tone lower, it is used to darken the violin sound and give it an appropriately gloomy presence in the Scène funèbre (Funeral scene) middle section. The opening Très modéré in D minor is far from cheerful but for the most part – as he so spontaneously develops the first theme towards a dramatic climax that takes the violin by way of double-stopped octaves to high up the E-string – Ysaÿe largely avoids the down-tuned G-string. It is only as the climax winds down towards the middle section that the darker colour is consistently touched on.

When the tempo drops to Grave et Lent for the B flat minor funeral scene the violin part is restricted to that recoloured bottom register until that key changes and the tempo gradually rises towards another climax, this one involving the violin in passionate parallel sixths in an upper register. After a Largamente reminder in double-stopped octaves of the funeral theme and a piano cadenza marked con furia e vivo, the Moderato tempo, the D minor harmonies and the melodic material of the opening section are recalled. Proceeding much as it did before, the recalled Moderato achieves an even more dramatic climax. The ending, where the violin is poised on high trills over the last recall of the main theme on the piano, finally reverts to the still de-tuned but no longer funereal G-string in the closing bars.