“The CD “Les Furies” showcases the Six sonates pour violon seul, op. 27 by Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931). An exuberant product of the Roaring Twenties, they are played on the 1735 Ex-David/Midori Guarneri del Gesù violin, a superb instrument that I wish I owned. The sonatas are joined, in a time-travelling leap forward to the hypermodern era, by my own composition, the Sojuchameleon for violin and field recordings. It was recorded in the zen-like atmosphere of a monastery, and complements the CD’s title, which campaigns for the introduction of a noise tax in urban areas. I hope you enjoy listening to it.

I first heard the Sonata No. 3 “Ballade” from the Six sonates pour violon seul, op. 27 in 1999, and was enchanted by its sonorous beauty; to me it sounded like the wind. After years of performing all six sonatas, I decided to record them. However, I came up against a paucity of information about Ysaÿe’s life. Only one book has been written about this “giant” (as his pupil at one remove Yehudi Menuhin called him), and it is in English only: Ysaÿe, His Life, Work and Influence, co-written by his son Antoine Ysaÿe and Bertram Ratcliffe. I find the lack of information strange, as Ysaÿe, described by Carl Flesch as the “violin incubator of Europe” and “the most outstanding and individual violinist I have ever heard in my life”, is at least on a par with that mysterious maverick Paganini, about whom there is no end of literature.” V.E. Kauzner