Carl Nielsen
Violin Sonata Op. 9 – A Major FS 20 (1895)
1. Allegro glorioso
2. Andante
3. Allegro piacévole e giovanile
Violin Sonata Op. 35 – FS 34 (1912)
4. Allegro con tipidézza
5. Molto adagio
6. Allegro piacévole
George Enescu
Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25 – ‘dans le caractère populaire roumain’
7. Moderato malincolico
8. Andante sostenuto e misterioso
9. Allegro con brio, ma non troppo mosso
Violin Sonatas ©
Carl Nielsen and George Enescu both played the violin since their very early childhood.
The country boy from Funen, Carl Nielsen, was six years old and was confined to bed with measles, and to while away time, his mother gave him a violin to play on.
George Enescu who grew up in the countryside of Moldova, in North-Eastern Romania, was just four years old when he received his first violin lessons from a ‘lăutar’ (a gypsy fiddler) named Nicolae Filip.
Since Filip could not read music, little George learned to play folk tunes by ear.
Something similar happened to Carl Nielsen: in My Funen Childhood he tells the story of how his mother, during his illness ‘sat down near the bed with a patchwork and sang some melodies for me, which I tried to repeat on the violin, afterwards. She had a not grand, yet clear and firm voice, and when I played out of tune she said: “No, now really listen”; and then we tried it again.’
The music George Enescu and Carl Nielsen learned as children, was in both cases folk music. Carl Nielsen recalls that one of the melodies his mother taught him was a sad Swedish folk tune Deep in the Sea, ‘which she hummed with a particularly gentle and dreamy voice’. And he goes on to say: ‘When she sang for herself, it seemed to me as if there was a certain melancholy undertone in her voice. It was as if she longed for something that laid far beyond the farthest trees on the horizon.’
