SONATAS FOR VIOLIN AND FORTEPIANO

It is well known that in the Hoboken catalog, apart from Hob:32 – long considered the only authentic Sonata for violin and piano by Haydn and published as such in Vienna in 1794 by Artaria – there seems to be no other Sonata for a similar ensemble: a fact, this, which is certainly surprising since we are dealing with the composer unanimously considered as the father of the string quartet. However, Alberto Bologni and Giuseppe Modugno have found, at the Civico Museo Bibliografico in Bologna, a printed edition, from the early 1800s, with three other alleged Sonatas, the XVa. Of the three, at least one, the one in C major, was also performed, in duo with his friend Luigi Dallapiccola, by the great violinist Sandro Materassi: indeed, the very last two concerts of his career both opened with this Sonata. While we leave the arduous, final judgment to the musicologists, let us enjoy this splendid music, entrusted to the voices of two exceptional instruments: an original Johann Schantz fortepiano from 1815 (famously considered “The Stradivarius” of the Fortepiano in nineteenth-century Vienna and which had among its admirers Franz Joseph Haydn himself, and a marvelous Santo Serafino from 1734). The two outstanding performers, such as Modugno and Bologni, accompany us in this discovery with rigor, passion and wonder.