1. Allegro
2. Tempo di Menuetto

For Mozart, music was a family affair. Leopold Mozart was a Salzburg musician who taught his children piano, violin, and composition, and took Wolfgang and his older sister Nannerl throughout Europe touting their impressive abilities. By the time Wolfgang was a teenager, he was gainfully employed as a court musician at home in Salzburg—a post arranged by his father—but he had a taste of Europe’s cosmopolitan offerings and wanted more. Against his father’s wishes, he left for Paris in 1777, stopping in Mannheim. He failed to find acceptable employment in either city but if not for pride, it was the loss of his mother in the summer of 1778 that led him home. As news of his mother’s decline and death made its way to Paris, the distraught Mozart composed his only instrumental work in E minor, the Sonata for Violin and Piano no. 21.

The opening melody features the musicians in a unison melody that is at first forlorn, then aggressively staccato. The rest of the exposition provides more thematic material in C major, but the development section riffs on the materials primarily in E minor through the repeat of the opening melody. The menuetto exudes a sense of nostalgia with a music box opening. A transition to G major lightens the mood, but unconvincingly so when a return to the opening melody yields more power. The central trio is a gently swaying chorale in the parallel E major. The return to E minor is more rhythmically active, colored by a series of sighing figures. For Mozart, the expected uplifting major-keyed Allegro finale is not welcome here, as evidenced by the frustrated and demonstrative final bars of the menuet.

—Chaz Stuart

1. Allegretto ben moderato
2. Allegro
3. Ben moderato: Recitativo-Fantasia
4. Allegretto poco mosso

Born in what is now Belgium, César Franck’s father pushed him into the conservatory at a young age. He tried his hand at concertizing and composition, but the mild-mannered Franck found his comfort zone in Parisian cathedrals where he built a reputation as the city’s foremost organist, excelling at improvisation and perfecting modern techniques. 

Having lived in France since his teenage years, Franck considered himself French, but formally became a citizen when he was appointed Professor of Organ at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872 where he developed a cadre of dedicated students. His compositional output remained modest until his last decade when he composed a collection of mature works in a late Romantic harmonic language heavily influenced by Richard Wagner and included his only Symphony, a Piano Quintet, and his refreshingly successful Violin Sonata.

Franck began writing his Violin Sonata as early as 1858 when he promised to compose a Sonata for the iconic Cosima von Bülow (the daughter of Franz Liszt who at the time was married to conductor Hans von Bülow and later to Richard Wagner). The project fell through, but he returned to the work thirty years later, completing it in 1886 as a wedding gift for one of the most prominent violinists in Europe, Eugène Ysaÿe. Eager to champion the work, Ysaÿe quickly learned the new Sonata, and performed it for his wedding guests. He kept it in his repertoire for the rest of his life.

The Sonata is notably cyclic with thematic elements reappearing throughout its movements. The opening Allegretto sways gently and captures a sweet nostalgia. Mysterious and unsettling, the devilishly difficult Allegro makes huge demands of the pianist as flurries of notes underpin the singing violin. The third movement is pensively marked Revitative-Fantasia, and the two instruments play in wandering isolation, ultimately joining to create gripping drama. The work’s finale conveys delightful simplicity as the violin and piano interplay conversationally as melodies follow one another toward a grand climax. 

—Chaz Stuart

The sweeping Romantic orchestral scores that defined the cinematic sound of Hollywood’s golden age were made possible by the influx of European composers fleeing the rise of Nazi Germany. One significant player in this epoch was Erich Korngold, who began his career as a child prodigy violinist with a skill for composition that earned him a reputation as a genius.

In the 1920s, he was laying the groundwork for a career in film, enjoying success composing for the stage, both opera and incidental music as with his score for a theater production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. He was commissioned by a small Viennese theater company that ultimately went under before the production staged. A second theater took over the production contracting Vienna Philharmonic musicians but the resounding success of the performance led to additional dates that conflicted with the musicians’ schedule, leading Korngold to create a piano and violin reduction. Both the orchestral and violin settings of the score remain some of his most performed music.

—Chaz Stuart