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CAMILLE THOMAS & JULIEN LIBEER
And, finally, let’s not forget the other pillar – and the great rarity – of your
disc: the Sonata for solo cello (1923) of Eugène Ysaÿe, the most recent work
on the programme. A very neglected composition, as you pointed out
before, to which you seem particularly attached . . .
C.T.:
I was sixteen years old when I heard this music; I immediately fell in love with
it. Two years later I played it for the first time. Since then it has appeared from
time to time in my solo programmes, and I’ve performed it in many of my recent
concerts.
Between the Bach Suites and the contemporary repertory, the literature for
unaccompanied cello is verymeagre indeed.TheYsaÿe Sonata is themost Romantic
work in the cellist’s solo repertory; a fascinating piece in which the cello sings,
shouts, narrates. It’s a sombre work too, in C minor, a key that allows the bottom
C string to sound and set the whole instrument vibrating. And it’s a very difficult
sonata, because Ysaÿe, as a great violin virtuoso, adapted his violinistic writing for
the cello: the challenge is to bring out the melody while at the same time letting
the listener hear the different voices.
The Sonata op.28 begins with a Grave, a very solemn, very religious movement –
rather like the music of Franck – which, towards the end, features little scales in
thirds and sixths, impalpable, as if rising heavenwards: very vivid musical imagery.
The second movement is an Intermezzo very much in the ‘Reminiscences’ spirit
of the rest of the disc. In this piece, I like to imagine a troubadour accompanying
himself on the lute as he tells the story of the lords of the castle. After that there’s
a brief movement marked ‘In modo di recitativo’, very operatic with its changes
of colours and dynamics, then a Finale con brio, a fugue, which makes a fine
conclusion to a fairly short but extremely dense work.