William Fitzpatrick: Eugene Ysaye: First the Hands, Then the Head - From the Violin Expert

So who is this? Well, if you know about Bach's six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas, and then wondered what other unaccompanied violin sonatas existed, you've probably run into Eugene Izayi.

He wrote six solo violin sonatas, which were a monumental addition to the violin repertoire, dedicating each one to a different violinist.

Zagetti, Thiebaud, Anescu, Kreisler, Crickboom, and Quiroga.

But what a curious idea, writing six sonatas dedicated to six different violinists.

I mean, did he know them well? Did they study with him? Well, his relationship with each of them was different.

He greatly admired Zagetti's performances.

He had wonderful memories of performances with Inescu at the home of Queen Elizabeth of Romania.

Crickboom was his student and second violinist in the Isaí quartet.

And he wrote the sixth sonata with the Spanish Abiniera character, reflecting Quiroga's playing.

As for the others, the first movement of the second sonata is titled Obsession.

It repeatedly quotes the first movement of Bach's E major partita, affectionately teasing Thiebaud's habit of warming up with it.

And as for number four, well, Kreisler was in the habit of turning up and performing forgotten manuscripts by Totini or Pugnani.

But Isai seems to have suspected that Kreisler actually wrote them.

So he teased Kreisler by writing this sonata in the style he was so cunningly mimicking.