New Recording: Waghalter’s Violin Sonata on Fin de Siècle Revisited

The violinist Łucja Madziar and the pianist Thomas Hoppe have recorded Ignatz Waghalter’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in F minor, Op. 5, for the Polish label DUX. Their album, Fin de Siècle Revisited, places the sonata between works by two of Waghalter’s contemporaries: Alexander Zemlinsky’s Serenade in A major and Richard Strauss’s Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 18. All three composers made their careers in the opera house. Each of these works dates from the years before that career began, when the young composers were working within the chamber-music tradition of Brahms.

The decision to present Waghalter alongside Strauss and Zemlinsky reflects his growing stature among performers. Until recently, his music was heard mainly in programs devoted to him alone, or in concerts commemorating composers persecuted under National Socialism. Here it takes its place in the musical history of its time, beside two composers whose works have long been in the repertoire.

Waghalter wrote the sonata while still a student in Berlin. In 1902, at the age of twenty-one, it won him the Mendelssohn Prize. He dedicated it to his brother Władysław, a violinist. In 1912 Władysław became concertmaster of the orchestra of the newly founded Deutsches Opernhaus, where Ignatz was music director. Madziar later held the same position at the house’s successor, the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The program grew out of recitals the duo gave on Berlin music at the turn of the century.

This is the second recording of the sonata. The first was made by Irmina Trynkos and Giorgi Latsabidze for Naxos in 2012.

Łucja Madziar is first concertmaster of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Thomas Hoppe trained at the Juilliard School, is a member of the ATOS Trio, and has partnered Itzhak Perlman, Tabea Zimmermann and Vilde Frang.

Fin de Siècle Revisited (DUX) is available on Spotify.