Sonata for solo violin No 1 in G minor Op 27 No 1
Sonata for solo violin No 2 in A minor Op 27 No 2
Sonata for solo violin No 3 in D minor ‘Ballade’ Op 27 No 3
Sonata for solo violin No 4 in E minor Op 27 No 4
Sonata for solo violin No 5 in G major Op 27 No 5
Sonata for solo violin No 6 in E major Op 27 No 6

Ysaye’s Sonatas for solo violin were sketched out in a fevered twenty-four hours during the summer of 1923, a response to the question of why in over two hundred years no one had attempted to follow the path forged by Johann Sebastian Bach. Each of these six new Sonatas is dedicated to and customized around the playing style of a contemporary violinist, and as such they present formidable challenges. Russian virtuoso Alina Ibragimova, whose earlier recording of the Bach Sonatas was revelatory, turns out performances fully worthy of this distinguished ancestry.