Skowronski: Alone ~~~ YIKES. YSAYE! ~~~ A number of years ago, I managed to procure what looked like a photocopy of Eugene Ysaye's original handwritten manuscript [of his Sonata for Two Violins] and then thought seriously about programming it. However, I didn't want to trash the title of my first-born CD Skowronski: Alone, as alone has always been the standard for my professional lifestyle. To do the "double" I would have had to hook up with another super fiddler and, truthfully, there was a paucity of prime candidates at the time.

Also, the score looked incredibly difficult (forget Sarasate's Navarra or Prokofiev's Sonata for Two Violins), exacerbated by the fact that most of the notation was indiscernible. I remember the piece having tons of skyscraper chords but, without serious and arduous study, you could not decipher them with ease. Also in evidence was Ysaye's maniacal (and very provocative) use of quarter tones and key signatures with multiple sharps and flats that he then gilded with gratuitous double sharping and flatting. Thus, the job of sorting out the piece before you could even make any sense out of it would have been a Homeric task and simply perhaps not worth the time. I had already recorded Bach's D Minor Unaccompanied, and the No. 2 Solo Sonata by Hindemith, and was preparing to launch recording sessions for three of the six Ysaye solo sonatas for violin alone -- there's that alone again! Ergo, no room for the Sonata for Two Violins. A downturn to this saga is that the music to the Double Sonata disappeared from my studio shortly after all of our fancy footwork, and has never been seen since. Vincent Skowronski Evanston, Illinois