Young and promising

Violinist Elizabeth Fayette plays four French composers

In
3 minute read
Up-and-coming violinist Elizabeth Fayette. (Photo via elizabethfayette.com)
Up-and-coming violinist Elizabeth Fayette. (Photo via elizabethfayette.com)

My favorite violinists are Viktoria Mullova and Hilary Hahn. Mullova hasn’t visited Philadelphia in years and Hahn comes here about once a season, so obviously I need to find a few other fiddlers to dote on.

Elizabeth Fayette is a young musician in the first stages of her career: the period when newcomers establish their bona fides by winning competitions and awards. She won the Musical Fund Society’s annual Career Advancement Award in 2014 and made a few waves in 2013 when she won Julliard’s violin concerto contest.

For her debut appearance with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, she played four pieces by French composers. Every piece proved she possesses one of the indispensable virtues of a true artist: she places her technical virtuosity at the service of her ability to grasp the essence of a composer’s vision.

She’s also a personable young woman who isn’t afraid to express her enthusiasm. She prefaced Pierre Boulez’s Anthèmes 1 with a short commentary in which she told the audience it was one of her favorite pieces and the first she had programmed for this event. The title comes from Boulez’s memories of childhood church services, and Fayette sees it as a dialogue between that part of Boulez’s personality and another, more agitated character. To her, it’s an example of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s dictum that the real test of a first-rate mind is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas.

Boulez’s music seems to lie outside the borders of my own personal taste, even though many people I respect love his work. We all have our limitations. In this case, I’m happy to report that I liked some aspects of the piece. There were even times when you could hear the comedy in the dialogue.

Controlled acceleration

Her opener, Messiaen’s youthful Thème et Variations, was an exercise in controlled acceleration, as each variation upped the tempo until it finally ended in a burst of soaring flight, followed by a closing serenity. The piece contains no overt indications of the religious mysticism that pervades much of Messiaen’s work, but it still had some deep personal significance. It was written as a wedding present for his first wife — a marriage that ended tragically when she lost her memory after a surgical operation.

Messiaen had two marriages that seem to have been profoundly romantic. In Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, the old Italian count tells the young American lieutenant, “You are in love. Do not forget that is a religious feeling.” That’s even truer when the feeling becomes the core of a long marriage.

An unstated theme

None of the program notes mentioned it, but a Valentine’s Day theme threaded through the concert. The third item on the program, Poulenc’s only violin sonata, was written for a young violinist and revised when she died in a plane crash a few years later. The finale, Cesar Franck’s Violin Sonata in A Major, was composed as a wedding present for another violinist, Eugene Ysaye.

In spite of the tragic mood that runs through it, the Poulenc retains the urban sense of movement I hear in most of Poulenc’s work. That connection with modern urban life is one of the main reasons I’ve become increasingly fond of Poulenc’s music. The Franck is a long, spacious piece, and Fayette captured the full range of its moods.

In an interview at Violinist.com, Fayette argues that more people would love classical music if they knew how much the musicians themselves love it. “I think if people see that somebody cares about something even if they don’t care about it, they start wondering why shouldn’t they care.”

It’s an idea that’s obviously rooted in her own love for the music she plays. When you combine that emotion with the insight and technical control she displayed at this concert, you have a performer who could become a major presence on the world’s concert stages.

What, When, Where

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society presents Elizabeth Fayette, violin, and Adam Golka, piano. Messiaen, Thème et Variations; Boulez, Anthèmes 1 for Solo Violin; Poulenc, Violin Sonata; Franck, Violin Sonata in A Major. February 14, 2016. At the American Philosophical Society, 427 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 215-569-8080 or pcmsconcerts.org.

Sign up for our newsletter

All of the week's new articles, all in one place. Sign up for the free weekly BSR newsletters, and don't miss a conversation.

Join the Conversation