Fauré’s 2nd Violin Sonata was written in 1916 in Evian and Paris, the first in a series of chamber music works. It is thus one of Faure’s late works, characterised by austerity, introspection and the intensity of its expression. It is hard to imagine a greater contrast to the brilliant and ornamental style of the virtuosic 1st Violin Sonata (HN 980), published 40 years earlier. The 2nd Sonata concentrates on the essentials, and on closer contact turns out to be a fascinating composition that harmonically explores the limits of tonality, delving deep into the “Modernism” of the 1920s.
G. Henle Publishers stands for Urtext sheet music of the highest quality. The Urtext editions not only provide the undistorted and authoritative musical text but are also aesthetically pleasing, optimised for practical use and extremely durable. And then there is the strong, distinctive blue profile: (almost) all of the Urtext editions are bound in the characteristic blue cardboard.
Musicians trust Henle's blue Urtext editions because they:
- provide an undistorted, reliable and authoritative musical text
- offer superb, aesthetically appealing music engraving
- are optimised for practical use (page turns, fingerings)
- are of high quality and durable (cover, paper, binding)
- contain a short preface that introduces the work (particularly useful for AMEB exams) in German, English and French, as well as explanatory footnotes for particularly interesting passages in the score
- contain a description of the sources, an evaluation of the sources, readings and a documentation of the corrections made (= "Critical Report") in German and English, and often also in French
