César Franck's Sonata for Piano and Violin is one of the most treasured works in the violin repertoire, a masterpiece of cyclic form with a gracefulness and expressive force almost paradigmatic for the age of musical Romanticism. This work was composed in 1886 and was dedicated to the Belgian violinist and composer Eugene Ysaye.After Franck's death in 1890 the original publisher of the Sonata, the Parisian house Julien Hamelle, announced an arrangement of the work for viola, but it has not been possible to locate any copy of this publication. The present arrangement for viola is largely based on Jules Delsart's arrangement for piano and cello, the only version of the Sonata which the composer authorized. However, the viola part here also adopts extensive passages in their original register or remains in the middle octave, especially in those passages where the cello lies two octaves beneath the violin. Being set in the alto register, the part thus lies between the other two string versions, lending the Sonata a delightful hybrid hue beyond the brilliance of the violin and the sonorousness of the cello. The piano part has been left intact and is thus identical to that of the original version. / Alto Et Piano

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) composed Adagio for violin and piano in 1905 and dedicated it to the outstanding violinist Imre Waldbauer. In 1910 Kodály made versions of the work for both viola and cello, while Norbert Duka transcribed it for double bass. In 2014 we published all four versions of Adagio in a new separate edition. / Alto Et Piano

Par CHOSTAKOVITCH DIMITRI. Shostakovich's last work, the Sonata For Viola And Piano Op. 147, is a superbly crafted Sonata in three movements with, unusually, a slow Adagio movement for the third. It was dedicated to the violist Fyodor Druzhinin, a professor of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and a member of the Beethoven String Quartet, a renowned Moscow ensemble that played at the premieres of most of Shostakovich’s string quartets. Fyodor Druzhinin and Mikhail Muntyan premiered the Viola Sonata in Leningrad on October 1, 1975. The solo Viola part is also included on a separate insert./ Répertoire / Alto et Piano