Jewels of Czech and Hungarian Music Part 2 – Pavel Kaspar Piano – Thomas Albertus Irnberger Violin

Jewels of Czech and Hungarian Music Part 2

Leoš Janáček’s Sonáta for violin and piano, was begun in 1914 as a response to Russian advances at the beginning of World War and finished in 1921. The work is an impassioned one, juxtaposing full sections with thick writing in the piano and expansive thematic material in the violin with pizzicato subdued sections, perhaps inspired by his contemporary, Bela Bartók.

The violinmaker of Cremona is a two-act opera composed by Jenő Hubay in 1892. The libretto is based on a French drama by Francois Coppée and Henri Beauclair of 1876. From this opera we play the beautiful solo oft he violinmaker, accompanied by the piano.The opera is set in seventeenth-century Cremona around the luthier’s workshop of Taddeo Ferarri. His two apprentices, Filippo and Sandro, are both in love with Giannina, Ferrari’s daughter. Giannina is in love with Sandro, but not the hunchback, Filippo.

František (Franz) Drdla (1868 – 1944) was a prominent violinist and composer of small pieces. His mazurka No.1. op. 22 is dedicated tot he famous violinist Marie Pauline Hall.

The last piece is an arrangement for violin and piano of Johannes Brahms´s Hungarian Dance No. 16 by his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), printed in 1880.

Thomas Albertus Irnberger Violin

Pavel Kaspar Piano