What about the music?
An inside look with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
VSO CLOSE UP: Beethoven Violin Sonatas
Sunday, November 16, 2025 | 3PM | Peebles Theater – Ferguson Center – Get Tickets
Grace Park, violin
Gilles Vonsattel, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2
Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 12, No. 3
Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major, Op. 47, “Kreutzer”
By Stella Feliberti
The Performers
Violin
Grace Park
Grace Park is a violinist celebrated for her artistry, passion, and virtuosity. Praised by the San Francisco Chronicle as “fresh, different and exhilarating” and by Strings Magazine for her “intensely wrought and burnished” sound, she captivates audiences worldwide. A winner of the Naumburg International Violin Competition, Ms. Park is recognized both as a dynamic soloist and a devoted chamber musician.
Ms. Park’s most recent solo debuts include the Colorado Music Festival, Bard Festival under the baton of Leon Botstein, Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall with the New York Youth Symphony, The Rudolfinum/ Dvorak Hall in Prague with Prague Philharmonia, and recital debuts at Krannert Center, Beethoven Minnesota Festival and Merkin Hall.
Future collaborations include her solo debuts at Seoul Arts Center with Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Sarasota Orchestra with Peter Oundjian, Orlando Philharmonic with Eric Jacobsen, along with chamber music debuts at the Savannah Music Festival and Camerata Pacifica.
Ms. Park recorded her debut solo album with the Prague Philharmonia and their music director, Emmanuel Villaume, which will include concertos and solo works of Mozart and Dvorak. It is set to be released in the spring of 2025.
A devoted and passionate educator, Ms. Park is an alumnus of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect and has taught masterclasses and coached at Conservatorio de Musica de Cartagena, Mannes School of Music, University of North Carolina, University of Mississippi, Washington and Lee University, North Dakota State University, Skidmore College, among others. She currently teaches as adjunct professor at the John J. Cali School of Music at Montclair State University.
As a native to Los Angeles, California, Ms. Park began violin at the age of 5 where she trained at the Colburn School of Music. She continued her studies at Colburn Conservatory and New England Conservatory for her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees. Principal teachers are Donald Weilerstein, Miriam Fried, Sylvia Rosenberg, and Robert Lipsett. She now resides in New York City.
She performs on a 1717 Giuseppe Filius Andrea Guarneri on loan from an anonymous sponsor.
Piano
Gilles Vonsattel
A “wanderer between worlds” (Lucerne Festival), “immensely talented” and “quietly powerful pianist” (New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, laureate of the Honens, Cleveland, and Dublin competitions, and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, while performing recitals and chamber music at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times.
Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s 2011 classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide.
Recent highlights include a performance of Carlos Chávez’s Piano Concerto in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium with The Orchestra Now, a debut at Mainly Mozart in San Diego, a critically acclaimed recording of music by Richard Strauss and Kurt Leimer with The Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago for the Schweizer Fonogramm label. In 2025, Vonsattel begins a three year complete Beethoven piano sonatas cycle for Camerata Pacifica. He will perform the entire cycle over the 2026-7 season for both Music@Menlo and at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.
The Creator
Ludwig van Beethoven
Fast Facts:
- Beethoven started composing around age 9 and published his first compositions in 1783.
- Beethoven learned how to play violin, viola, and piano from a very young age. He got his first job as a musician as the court’s organist under Christian Gottlob Neefe.
- Beethoven started to study under Franz Joseph Haydn in 1792 where he took counterpoint lessons and studied violin. Though he studied with the great Haydn, Beethoven aspired to meet and study with Mozart. However, the two never met despite their efforts to connect.
- Beethoven is known for writing masterwork Symphonies but is also highly regarded for his chamber music, especially his string quartets.
- Beethoven is known for leading the transition from the Classical Era into the Romantic Period, leading to his high regard as one of the most famous composers of all time.
- While most consider Beethoven to be completely deaf by his later symphonies, including the 7th Symphony played on this concert, he did not lose his hearing completely until 1826 when his String Quartet in B-flat Op.130 premiered.
The Pieces
Beethoven
Violin Sonata No.2 in A Major, Op.12
Listen to Violin Sonata No.2 in A major, Op.12 from Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace:
- Beethoven’s second violin sonata was written between 1797 and 98. It is dedicated to composer Antonio Salieri with whom Beethoven studied with in Vienna. This sonata is part of the collection of Op.12 Violin Sonatas along with No.1 and No.3.
- This sonata is part of Beethoven’s Early Period, which largely follows the Classical style of the time. Thus, works in this period (including this one) are in the Viennese style, which encompass balanced phrases, clarity, and tuneful melodies. However, Beethoven was an innovator and took these standards and forms and expanded upon them.
- Unlike the other sonatas of the Op.12 collection, No.2 is reminiscent of the comic opera charm of the period with lighthearted and surprising turns of phrases.
- The first movement starts with the violin’s accompanying staccato chords while the piano plays a skipping half-step motif, which acts as the major building block for the whole movement. This movement is full of fun and comedy with unexpected accents, syncopations, and breathless pauses. The second movement is denoted as “serious and expressive” and is characterized by the back-and-forth passing of melody between the piano and violin. Finally, the last movement is a lighthearted, charming, and syncopated finale, living up to its marking as Allegro piacevole (fast and amusing).
Beethoven
Violin Sonata No.3 in E-flat Major, Op.12
Listen to Sonata No.3 in E-Flat Major, Op.12 from Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace:
- Beethoven’s third violin sonata was written in 1798 and is dedicated to Antonio Salieri. This dedication is curious as Salieri was Beethoven’s mentor for vocal, not instrumental, music and was not a usual dedicatee for Beethoven’s works as he usually dedicated his pieces to nonprofessional musicians.
- While this sonata as well as the other two in the Op.12 set fit the traditional sonata-form first movement, slow movement, and rondo, they also break Classical era forms with innovative modulations and rich interplay between the violin and piano. At the time, critics saw this approach as “strange modulations,” “inimical barriers,” and “perversities.”
- This sonata is a virtuoso work for both the violin and piano with its expansive and rhetorical gestures, highlighting Beethoven’s approach from his Classical period counterparts.
Beethoven
Violin Sonata No.9 in A Major, Op.47, “Kreutzer”
Listen of the “Kreutzer” Sonata from Maxim Vengerov and Polina Osentinskaya:
- Violin Sonata No.9 was written in 1803 as one of the catalyzing works of Beethoven’s middle period: the Heroic period. It is one of his most famous violin sonatas, regarded for its technical difficulty, unusual length (about 40 minutes!), and emotional depth.
- The sonata is known as the “Kreutzer” sonata, named after violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer. Yet, it was not Kreutzer who collaborated with Beethoven to write the piece. Originally the work was composed with violinist George Bridgetower in mind. Bridgetower was the son of a West Indian father and European mother, who became a prodigy from a young age and toured with his father promoted as the “son of the African Prince.”
- Unlike his other violin sonatas, Beethoven had recognized that this sonata would be unlike any other. In his title page, he describes the piece as a “sonata for the pianoforte and violin obbligato (a musical line that is indispensable to the piece), written in a very concertato style, almost like a concerto (a musical piece for solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra).”
- After the premiere of the work, Beethoven and Bridgetower had a falling out over a woman, as recounted by Bridgetower after Beethoven’s death. Thus, Beethoven dedicated the work to French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, who disliked the work and never performed it.
- The sonata begins with a slow and sparse introduction, starting with the violin alone. This opening is not only odd because of the solo violin starting the piece but also because the introduction is something expected of a symphony, not sonata. Yet, from this introduction unfolds a dramatic and driving D minor movement, filled with passion. The second movement is expansive in its theme and variations with a coda. However, this movement has moments of rhythmic and harmonic digressions that make each variation surprising and engaging. The finale, the only movement actually in A major, is in sonata form but has a virtuosity and exuberant energy that closes this masterwork.