Sonata per a violí i piano (Sonata for violin and piano)

This edition of the Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano is based on the manuscript preserved by Orfeó Badaloní. The century-old institution from Badalona, founded by Antoni Botey and four other musicians, received the manuscript—along with other scores—in 1974 from Botey’s sister-in-law, Joaquima Alsina y Casanovas. Following Botey’s death in 1939, the family kept the sheet music in an attic until it was donated in 1974.

On Sunday, March 22, 1914, Antoni Botey won the extraordinary prize awarded by the Barcelona City Council to the top students of the city’s Municipal Music School. The three candidates for the grand prize in violin—Antoni Altimira, Pablo Ibarguren, and Botey himself—performed the first movement of Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with orchestra. This prize was significant, as it included a grant—akin to today’s scholarships—from the Barcelona City Council to further his studies at the Brussels Conservatory. However, the violin studies that Botey could have pursued at the prestigious Brussels Conservatory were thwarted by the German occupation of Belgium in August 1914, during the First World War (1914-1918). Unable to travel to Brussels, Botey turned to studying composition at the Barcelona Municipal Music School under Enric Morera. This marked the beginning of his chamber music works, starting with the Sonata for Violin and Piano (1916), followed by the Sonata for Cello and Piano (late 1916 to early 1917), the Elegy for Violin and Piano (summer 1917), and finally, the Trio for Violin, Cello, and Piano (February-March 1918).

The title of the manuscript reads Sonata I for Violin and Piano by Antoni Botey, suggesting that the composer intended to write more than one violin sonata. However, there is no evidence that Botey ever completed a second sonata for violin and piano. The sonata consists of three movements: Alegre enèrgic, Andante and Alegre – Scherzando. The manuscript is dated “Órrius, 14 – IX – 16” (September 14, 1916). The family spent their summer in this village, where there is also a farmhouse known as Can Botey.  It appears that Antoni Botey used his summer stay in Òrrius in 1916 to compose this sonata for violin and piano.

We would like to thank Màrius Alfambra i Serrano for the information he provided about Can Botey and for the date on which Joaquima Alsina donated the scores to Orfeó Badaloní.

Marta Augé and Marc Renau