Luogo e data di registrazione		-
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		-
	Edizione LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.42619 AP - (1 LP - durata 49' 37") - (p) 1980 - Analogico
	Originale LP		-
	Prima Edizione CD		-
	Note		-

Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber was one of the most important composers and violists of the German-speaking world of the 17th century. As an instrumentalist, he excelled in virtuoso playing which he developed right up to the seventh position, and his bold double stopping; also his works frequently require scordatura, that is the re-turning of individual strings, as is the case in the so-called "Rosary" Sonatas. They were probably played for the first time in 1678 in Salzburg Cathedral, as church music for the "XV Sacra Mysteria". Each sonata is preceded by an engraving. A Passacaglia which is appended to the sonatas is accompanied by an illustration from which one may deduce that the piece was written for the Feast of Guardian Angels on 2nd October. This Passacaglia proves Biber's technique on the violin as well as his vivid musical imagination. After Biber no other musician made such technical demands on the violin until Niccolò Paganini appeared on the scene. His 24 Capricci for solo violin, op. 1. was far more than a teaching manual; it has become a standard technical and musical work for violinists. Anything that is possible - or in the case of most fiddlers, impossible - on the violin, is contained in these 24 pieces. The high spot of these compositions, which are not only of the highest order of virtuosity, but also, from the musical point of view, most impressive examples of variation technique, is the 24th Caprice in A minor. Like the great C major Fantasia D 934, Schubert's B minor Rondo for Violin and Piano was also written for the Czech violinist Josef Slawyk (1806-1833; Chopin remarked: "He plays like a second Paganini.") Slawyk perfeormed it for the first time, probably at the beginning of 1827, in Vienna together with Karl Maria von Bocklet "at a social gathering in the home of (Domenico) Artaria, where Schubert was also present" (Kreißle). The andante beginning leads into a "brilliant" (which was the original title) rondo, which among other things takes up and processes the material of the introduction. Eugène Ysaÿe, who was born in Liège, was one of the great violinists of the outgoing 19th and the opening 20th century. Franck, Debussy, Fauré, Chausson and Saint-Saëns dedicated important works to him and his string quartet which was founded in 1888. The six sonatas for solo violin are counted among his most significant compositions, works which radically exhaust the technical possibilities of the violin and, from the compositional craft point of view, fuse the polyphonic texture of the historical model of Bach's sonatas and partitas with the late romantic expressive style of, say, Reger's violin paraphrases. Not least of all, Ysaÿe records in the dedication of the individual sonatas his admiration and affection for his younger colleagues. The sonatas are dedicated consecutively to Hungarian-born Joseph Szigeti, the Frenchman Jacques Thibaud, to George Enescu, who born in Rumania, to Austrian-born Fritz Kreisler, his compatriot and pupil Mathieu Crickboom, and to the Spaniard Maneul Quiroga. The third sonata is the shortest and probably the best known. It has one movement and is classical in form. The march-like principal theme is accentuated by chords and arpeggios. The ballad-style rhapsodic basic character undergoes dramatic intensification towards the conclusion. Maurice Ravel's well-known Sonata for Violin and Piano, completed in 1927, is intended deliberately to counterpoise the two instruments, rather as though each was playing in a different room. When the composer said about the work that no one would dislocate a finger playing it, he did not do full justice to its technical demands; these arise from the delicate detail of tone colour and rhythmic sophistication. The second movement is an allusion to jazz, which was just beginning to make an appearance and which greatly interested Ravel. The melodic flow of the figurations in the finale almost introduces an element of breathlessness into the writing although it never loses is lightness or joyfulness. ·········· Thomas Zehetmair was born in 1961 in Salzburg, the son of two violinists. He started to learn the instrument at the age of 5, and soon started to compose as well. In 1975 he won his first competition prize (Youth makes Music) and was acclaimed as an infant prodigy. In addition to the vital instruction which he got from his father, he also gained much from master classes with Franz Samohyl. Thomas Zehetmair wisely started his career on a small scale, avoiding a great mass of concerts. Even so, his recitals in Vienna, in the Große Festspeilhaus in Salzburg and at other international festivals, both with orchestras of high repute and in recitals, achieved great success and great promise for the future. His first recording for Telefunken was devoted works by W.A. Mozart, the cadenzas for which he wrote himself.