Enescu, Ravel & Skalkottas: Violin & Piano

Featuring

Jonian Ilias Kadesha
Nicholas Rimmer
George Enescu
Maurice Ravel
Nikos Skalkottas

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Performer Biography

Jonian Ilias Kadesha, an Albanian-Greek violinist, is recognized as a gifted and versatile musician, having won prizes at five international solo and chamber music competitions.

Compositional Technique

Enescu's Third Violin Sonata, influenced by Gypsy music, creates a mosaic of violin techniques and Romanian folk character using motif fragments and sacred chants, rather than direct folk melodies.

Composition History

Maurice Ravel's Violin Sonata in G Major, his last chamber music work, was dedicated to his friend Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, but she could not premiere it due to rheumatism.

Composer Biography

George Enescu, Romania's musical ambassador, left his native land at age seven to study in Vienna and Paris, becoming a world-renowned violinist, composer, pianist, and conductor.

Composition History

Maurice Ravel's rhapsody Tzigane was inspired by the playing of Hungarian-born British violinist Jelly d'Arányi, for whom he wanted to create a virtuosic piece surpassing existing works in the genre.

Compositional Technique

Ravel's Violin Sonata in G Major is notable for integrating jazz elements into European concert repertoire, particularly in its middle movement titled 'Blues,' which evokes a banjo sound.

Composer Biography

Nikos Skalkottas, a Greek composer, studied violin and composition in Berlin, becoming a favored pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, though his association with the Schoenbergian avant-garde later made him an outsider in Greece.