By Robert Croan
Victor Santiago Asuncíon, himself a first-class pianist with a busy touring schedule, brings worthy and interesting guest collaborators to his splendid chamber music series in the Community Church at Lauderdale-By-the Sea. The fifth and last concert of his 2026 season, on May 23, featured Beijing-born Qing Li, principal second violin of the Baltimore Symphony and a professor of violin at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.
Sponsored by the Piatigorsky Foundation, their program centered on two violin-piano sonatas that are too rarely heard in live recital performances.
Gabriel Fauré’s Sonata No. 1 in A major (Op. 13) and Richard Strauss’s Sonata in E-flat major (Op. 18), are both youthful works, written only 10 years apart — Fauré’s premiered in 1877, Strauss’s in 1888 — but they could hardly be more different: a virtual musicology lesson in French vs. German styles in the late 19th century. Coincidentally, each work was inspired by a woman whom the composer loved. Fauré’s muse was Marianne Viardot, sister of violinist Paul Viardot, to whom the work was dedicated — Marianne and Paul were children of legendary singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Marianne broke off the relationship with Fauré before they were to be married. Strauss was inspired by soprano Pauline De Ahna, who shortly afterwards became his wife.
The Fauré work builds on classical models of Schumann and Mendelssohn, with an initial keyboard solo realized by Asuncíon in a rainbow of auditory color, taken up by Li’s strong definition of the main themes and distinctive tone quality — she plays on a gorgeous sounding 1736 Nicolo Gagliano instrument. Asuncíon’s rippling arpeggios partnered beautifully with Li’s soaring string lines in the opening movement, giving way to the lilting siciliana rhythms of the Andante, gently articulated in the piano, highly nuanced by the violin.
The playful Scherzo introduced the Allegro finale, which Asuncion had described earlier to the audience as “a ray of sunshine,” an epithet mirrored by the two performers’ optimistic, confident rendition.
Strauss’s only sonata for this combination is the opposite of Fauré’s understated disposition, totally tempestuous and extroverted. It’s a very different sort of expression of first love, or perhaps a tryout for works to come such as Ein Heldenleben. It’s also one of the most difficult works in the genre for both instruments, an exercise in virtuosity as well as passion, and the two protagonists came through with flying colors. Asuncíon negotiated the dense, quasi-orchestral piano part with no visible evidence of its technical challenges, while Li adroitly defined the fiery main theme in divergent ways each time it appeared.
The second movement, labeled “Improvisation” in the score (it’s anything but that), was rhapsodic in the manner of a Chopin nocturne, giving the pianist opportunities to show his sensitivity to touch and gradation. In the final movement, Li took over, diva-like, as a coloratura soprano (appropriate for representing Strauss’s Pauline) strutting her stuff.
The duo followed these two traditional sonatas with Fratres, a 10-minute 1980 work by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. His unique style of minimalism, called “tintinnabuli,” layers a chant-like melody (here in the violin) over bell-simulating, hymnic chords (in the piano) in a sequence of reiterations, each marked by slight alterations, exploiting contrasts between meditative vs. extroverted outbursts. It was a unique sonic experience, which these artists carried off brilliantly.
The concert concluded with Béla Bartók’s cheerful and uplifting Six Romanian Folk Dances, sending the enthusiastic audience home with a smile.