"Ysaÿe… aussi", as Fernandel might have had it, as Ysaÿe followed the example of several illustrious predecessors – Bach, Telemann, Tartini, Paganini, Hindemith – by writing several great works for solo violin. His six Sonatas Op. 27 from 1923 mark the period of his greatest maturity, at the age of 65. Each one is dedicated to a great virtuoso: Joseph Szigeti, Jacques Thibaud (whose first movement, "Obsession", is a meeting of subverted and re-purposed quotes from Bach and Paganini, a true delight), George Enescu, Fritz Kreisler, Mathieu Crickboom, and Manuel Quiroga. This is much more than just a collection of pleasant, well-written pieces. There are moments of truly startling modernity, to which the composer brought all the cutting-edge techniques of the day: atonalism, quarter tones, whole tone scales, as well as the most advanced bowing techniques developed by the great soloists of the time. Standing on the shoulders of his illustrious discographic forebears, the violinist Stefan Tarara (winner of the famous Bucharest Enescu Competition and the no-less famous Wieniawski Competition in Poland) throws himself into these six fascinating masterpieces, each of which casts Ysaÿe in a very different light to how he is normally perceived, i.e. as a virtuoso composer who wrote for his own glory. For one thing, he was also writing for the fame of these six young followers of his! © SM/Qobuz