Intégrale de la musique pour violon et guitare

Description

It is Jakob Ortner, one of the composer's colleagues at the Academy of Vienna, who sparked Rebay's interest in the guitar. The enthusiasm and skill demonstrated by Ortner and his students convinced Rebay that the guitar could support any harmonic construction, far beyond the clichéd writing for the instrument from the late 19th century. The 12 Deutsche Tänze by Beethoven (1939, from the cycle WoO8) and the Tema con Variazioni from Op.12 No.1 by L. van Beethoven (1952) testify to a great passion for the German composer; Rebay also arranged Beethoven's Sonatas Op.79 and Op.90 for ensembles including a guitar. Rebay often opted for a simple style to make his arrangements accessible to a wide range of performers. This is the case with some transcriptions (unfortunately undated) for violin and guitar: a gavotte in D minor by Jean-Baptiste Lully; a minuet in F major by Georg Friedrich Handel; the Andante from the Italian Concerto BWV971 and the prelude in E major from the first book of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. This likely indicates a revision of the violin part and shows the esteem in which the composer was held on the Viennese music scene. Rebay returned to the violin-guitar pairing several times for one of his favorite genres: theme and variations. The writing here is more demanding and is characterized by the equal weight given to both instruments and the use of keys unrelated to the theme for the individual variations, producing a concertato effect with many subtle expressive twists. All the cycles of variations in this recording are based on folk themes, except for those based on "Heidenröslein" (1953, from the Lied of the same name by Franz Schubert) and "Und der Hans schleicht umher" (undated), which some researchers, contrary to Rebay's title, attribute to Franz von Woyna. Finally, Rebay wrote two sonatas for violin and guitar, both in 1942, in which he utilized his innovative concept of the guitar as a fully versatile harmonic instrument. They follow a similar expressive path: a dark yet assertive first movement leads to vibrant and lyrical playing in the theme and variations, before the tone gradually brightens during the last two movements. Now that the status of the guitar is fully established, Rebay's refined and dignified voice has been heard, thanks to the solid craftsmanship of the music but above all to its sincerity. His rediscovery dispels many clichés and reassures us that humble yet beautiful music is not necessarily destined to be unjustly forgotten.