In the liner notes written for Thomas Zehetmair's recording of Eugene Ysaye's Six Sonatas for Unaccompanied Violin, Paul Griffiths describes both the composition and performance of the sonatas as a journey into the violinist's psyche.   I find Mr. Griffith's observations to be true now as I begin the third of these sonatas, the Ballade.  Incidentally, the Ballade is my "third Ysaye Sonata":   I learned the fourth (dedicated to Fritz Kreisler) while a student at Rice University and the second (dedicated to Jacques Thibaud) in 2006 for a concert at the New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas.   The Ballade, however, was the first of the six that I heard in performance - my first glimspe into a wild world.

In 1993 I attended the Helen and Immanuel Olshan Texas Music Festival, which is held annually on the campus of the University of Houston.   This was my first music festival and while that may seem "late" to some - the members of the house of "some" being those who spent countless summers at violin bootcamps - it was a month of enlightenment and excitement for me as I, for the first time, interacted with musicians from Mexico, Poland, Japan and the United States, gaining an amazing insight into the world of musicmaking (and musicmaking around the world).

I was simultaneously awedand humbled by the level of violin playing around me:   weekly master classes were held during which I heard students my age playing concerti by Tchaikovsky, Lalo, Weiniawski and Saint-Saens; the chamber orchestra did a concert in which four students (one of whom was also a member of the Mexico City Philharmonic and had studied in the Soviet Union - his Mexican compadres called him "blue eyes") played Vivaldi's Four Seasons (little did I know that years later I would perform all four of those works in one night); faculty and student chamber music concerts were stunning; the level of the orchestra amazing.   During this summer's festival a member of the violin faculty played a complete recital which included Ysaye's Ballade.  

Hearing one's instructor is definitely both inspiring and humbling; however, the next day a young woman of eightteen years played the Ballade in a master class, and while my teacher's performance the night before was indeed memorable, this student performance (given by Beverly Shin - wherever you are, you left an impression on my soul) was electrifying, hair-raising, earth-shattering.   

While I did congratulate Beverly later at dinner I must admit that it was difficult to find "words", as her performance was one of those moments to which we as musicians all aspire as well as anticipate, a moment that transcended 'correct' violin playing - a moment that Joseph Campbell would call an "Oh...ah..." moment.  To this day I still find myself unable to speak after performance during which it is clear that an atist is living out his destiny and sometimes choose to say nothing, to stand apart from the mob and its oozing pleasantries:   "Nice job" is just not enough sometimes.

Three years later a Canadian played the Ballade in a recital at the Shepherd School that included works by Schnittke and Szymanowski.   While still amazed that someone was playing Ysaye's Surrealist/Impressionist language with such ease (yes, still amazed even though I, ten months before, had given a performance of the fourth sonata in a class recital), the sheer power of Beverly Shin's musicmaking and violin playing still haunted me.

As I look at notes on paper, I ask "Who am I to think that I could do what she did on that day?"   Is this a question that implies false modesty or is it a true acceptance of what I, fourteen years later, perceive to be my limitations?    Being one who is rarely satisfied, I cannot answer those questions, as I know that the answer will only come from the daily grind and on the day that I step onto stage, putting bow to string to play Lento recititavo - piano.     I DO know that of course, I will not be able to do what Beverly did, this performance will be mine...another rite of passage in the journey that we call violin playing.

For all who have entered Ysaye's portrait of Enescu's world - a true example of Surrealism as it is simultaneously the presentation and the denial of "the self" (Ysaye's trailblazing musical language being the assertion of himself; the recollection of the playing styles of his colleagues being the denial)- please accept this essay as an invitation to share your  thoughts and memories.