Eugène Ysaÿe

Born in Liège, Belgium in 1858, Eugène Ysaÿe was one of the greatest violinists of his time, and was also an admired teacher, composer and conductor. A phenomenal child prodigy, he began studying at Liège Conservatory aged nine. After graduating, his violin playing soon became legendary for its immense technical mastery, hyper-accurate tuning, and beautiful warmth of tone. Ysaÿe once said that his artistic priorities as a performer were “emotion, poetry and heart”. In 1886 César Franck composed his Violin Sonata as a wedding present for Ysaÿe; when the score was presented to Ysaÿe on the day itself, he played it to the assembled guests virtually at sight. He was the founder and leader of the Ysaÿe Quartet, which gave the first performance of Debussy’s String Quartet in 1893. And among Ysaÿe’s own compositions, his Six Sonatas for solo violin Op. 27, written in a few weeks in July 1923, are regarded as a virtuoso pinnacle of the instrument’s repertory.