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Eugène Ysaÿe, brother of pianist and composer Théo Ysaÿe, was a composer and conductor as well as one of the greatest violinists who ever lived.  Born in Liege, Belgium, in 1858, he started violin lessons at the age of five and made his first public appearance at seven. He went on to become the leading violinist of his time, combining beauty of tone with great technical ability and depth of musical expression. Pablo Casals claimed never to have heard a violinist play in tune before Ysaÿe, and Carl Flesch called him ‘the most outstanding and individual violinist I have ever heard in my life.’

Ysaÿe was also an accomplished avant-garde composer, perhaps best known for his Six Sonatas for Solo Violin. These set a new standard by which to judge a violinist’s technical prowess and are masterpieces of the genre, opening the way to the later sonatas by Bartók and Prokofiev, as well as those by Hindemith and the preludes and fugues by Reger. Given his reputation as ‘The King of the Violin’ it seems surprising that many of his works remain unknown, unpublished and unrecorded.

This album presents for the first time several works for violin and piano ranging from 1885 to 1924, and a previously unknown Violin Concerto from 1910. The internationally known Romanian violinist Sherban Lupu studied in London with Yehudi Menuhin and other leading teachers and has a busy career, being best known for his discovery, publication and performance of the music of Enescu. He also has held prestigious posts in Italy and Romania and as concertmaster of San Francisco Opera, USA. He is accompanied here by the award-winning young French pianist Henri Bonamy (who was Professor of Piano in Seoul, Korea and now teaches in Munich) and the excellent orchestra of Liepaja, Latvia. The conductor is Paul Mann who has made a name recently with his recordings for Toccata Classics. These are exuberant and passionate performances of brilliant music. Highlights include Scènes Sentimentales Nos. 3 and 5 (written to showcase the composer’s virtuosity), the enchanting Élégie, the evocative Trois Études-Poèmes and the Violin Concerto in G minor, completed and orchestrated by Sabin Pautza in 2017.