The viola d'amore is a cousin of the violin with fourteen strings, seven of which resonate in sympathy. Henri Casadesus was its greatest master between 1900 and 1940. He is the one who went the furthest in improving the instrument and its technique.  He leaves us a book of preludes in testimony to his virtuosity. An excellent composer, Henri Casadesus takes advantage of each of these pieces to wink at a composer or a style of his time, between post-romantic, neo-classical and modern music. Here is an intimate notebook full of treasures from another time.

 

After years of violin in Yolande Leroy's class at the Hungarian Tibor Varga school and a European career in folk music, Yvain Delahousse discovered the viola d'amore at the age of 27 and decided to devote himself entirely to it. There followed several experiences as an opera soloist on the viola d'amore, including the interpretation of the solo devoted to this instrument in Les Huguenots at La Monnaie in Brussels. On viola d'amore alone, he explores the dedicated repertoire of the great composers: Bach, Vivaldi, Huberty. Yvain quickly became a great admirer of Henri Casadesus, whose repertoire he perfected with Pierre-Henri Xuereb at the Royal Superior Conservatory of Liège in recent years. He now plays a copy of the mythical great viola d'amore by Georges Chanot made in 1936 for H. Casadesus on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition in Paris.   His playing on the contemporary viola d'amore essentially explores the post-baroque viola d'amore and the evolution of the instrument through the centuries.