FRENCH Violín Sonatas: Franck, Debussy, Ravel [CD de audio] Shlomo Mintz (violin), Yefim Bronfman (piano) and Franck, Debussy,

César Franck (1822-1890) created the great four-movement Violin Sonata in 1886, the same year his obscure Symphony in D minor was composed, and dedicated the work to the Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe. According to tradition, it was Franck's wedding gift to his friend, who is said to have played the piece from sheet music at the wedding breakfast. At the first audition, a month later, Ysaÿe was already playing the work from memory. Like many of Franck's large-scale works, the sonata is based on a theme that repeats throughout the work. The Violin Sonata in G minor by Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was composed in 1916, shortly before the death of the composer, who accompanied the violinist Gaston Poulet on the piano at the first hearing. The Violin Sonata in G major by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was premiered by the violin genius George Enescu, with whom Ravel was a lifelong friend. The influences of emerging jazz are unmistakable, the romantic colors of French Impressionism overlap with the chordal world of looming modernity. Sometimes the violin sounds like a saxophone, the piano accompaniment is syncopated like in a Hollywood blockbuster. Shlomo Mintz is an internationally sought-after Israeli violinist of Moscow origin, who also acts as a conductor. Yefi M Bronfman is an American-born Israeli pianist who studied, among others, with Arie Vardie. Already at the age of ten he publicly played Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.