A Vibrant Testimonial

The first time that Sergei Prokofiev encountered the artistry of David Oistrakh was at a concert in which the then 18-year-old violinist played the master’s First Violin Concerto. The irascible composer was so indignant with the young Oistrakh’s performance that he saw fit to climb up onto the stage after the final cadence and deliver a stern critique to the crestfallen violinist in front of the entire concert audience. It is a tribute more to Oistrakh’s sense of humor than anything else that he and Prokofiev eventually became good friends, and would come to chuckle over the composer's forthright abrasiveness that evening.

Oistrakh’s sense of humor also served him well on a tour of Australia years later when he had become a world-famous celebrity. The residents of one small town on his tour wanted desperately to make their honored guest feel as much at home as possible, and so seized on the opportunity to learn some courteous Russian phrases from a mischievous Soviet pianist who was also on an Australian tour. Alas, the phrases were not as courteous as the poor Aussies thought they were, and Mr. and Mrs. Oistrakh were obliged to politely endure day upon day of verbal abuse in Russian being heaped on them by their well-intentioned hosts.

In time, Prokofiev so admired Oistrakh’s artistry that he submitted to the violinist’s urgings and fashioned for him two violin sonatas. The first Violin Sonata was written between 1938 and 1944, and its rhetoric mirrors the turbulence of the era in which it was conceived, as well as the character of its composer, a man Stravinsky once described as being “full of splinters.”

By contrast, Gabriel Fauré’s first Violin Sonata was written by a young man smitten. The focus of Fauré’s attentions at the time was Mlle. Marianne Viardot, daughter of the celebrated mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. Fauré wrote the A major Violin Sonata for Marianne's violinist brother Paul in 1875. It is a bold, passionate work: extroverted and romantic, propelled by the rapture of a blooming love affair, and confidently and expertly conceived. Saint-Saéns thought it possessed “...a kind of unconscious naivete which is most irresistible.”

Oddly, it is only since Fauré's death in 1924 that this work has enjoyed the popularity it so obviously deserves. It was only grudgingly published originally (Breitkopf and Hartel did so magnanimously on the condition that the composer receive neither a fee nor royalties), and was long overshadowed by Franck’s A major Violin Sonata, written ten years later.

Although remarkably dissimilar stylistically, these sonatas by Prokofiev and Fauré do share an intensity of character that is well complimented by Miss Salerno-Sonnenberg’s performance of them. A quick flip from Prokofiev to Faure is also a vibrant testimonial to this young violinist's exceptional versatility—but do so warily. The distance covered by that quick flip is arresting, to say the least.