Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet, Op. 21

Imagine a piece that cannot quite decide whether it is a chamber work or a concerto, and is all the more thrilling for it: Chausson's Concert in D major sits in a category entirely its own, with the violin and piano functioning as solo protagonists set against the string quartet in a relationship that recalls the Baroque concerto grosso, where soloists and a larger ensemble trade off material in dialogue. Composed between 1889 and 1891 and dedicated to the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who played the premiere in Brussels in 1892, this roughly 40-minute work unfolds cyclically, meaning a germinating three-note motif heard in the opening bars returns and evolves across all four movements, binding the whole together like a recurring dream. The emotional range is extraordinary: from sweeping, Wagnerian chromatic intensity in the first movement through a graceful lilting Sicilienne, a deeply melancholy third movement that opens like a dirge, and a charged finale that many listeners hear as an ultimate reckoning with all the tension that came before.

What to listen for

In the second movement Sicilienne, listen for the way the mood seems to hover in a kind of poised, sun-dappled stillness, the lilting 6/8 rhythm rocking gently beneath a melody of disarming simplicity, before the texture suddenly swells to an unexpected moment of fullness and then retreats just as quietly. Then, in the finale, notice how the very opening three-note motif from the first movement crashes back in a dramatic restatement before the work closes with a bright, emphatic D major affirmation, as if everything that was restless and unresolved has finally snapped into place.

Recommended recording

The recording by Renaud Capuçon, Nicholas Angelich, and the Quatuor Ebène has been praised for its tonal warmth and the clarity it brings to Chausson's intricate inner textures.

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