Eugène Ysaÿe - 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin (1923-4) (Complete, w/Posthumous Sonata and analysis)

Eugène Ysaÿe was a Belgian virtuoso violinist, composer, and conductor. He was regarded as “The King of the Violin“, or, as Nathan Milstein put it, the “tsar“. As a self-taught composer, he produced several important works, mainly the Poèmes for various instruments (of which Poème élégiaque is the most famous, and it influenced Chausson to write his Poème), and 6 Sonatas for Solo Violin. The six sonatas come into being after the composer heard Joseph Szigeti play Bach’s Solo Violin Sonata No.1 in G min. Inspired by this, he sought to produce a modern counterpart to Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas. The resulting 6 sonatas were dedicated to fellow violinists that he was close to. The sonatas are also musical portrait of the 6 violinists, as it was tailored to their playstyle, and included pieces from their repertoires. All of them were composed during 1923-4 in composer’s holiday home in Knokke-le-Zoute (Knokke-Heist in Western Belgium). The premi