A substantial early work for viola and piano. The second movement, 13 minutes long, can be played separately.

 

for viola and piano / 25 min.
in three movements
I. Bold / II. With quiet resolve / III. Moving ahead

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Program Note

My Viola Sonata is in many ways my Opus 1—the piece in which I began to break free of the powerful influences of composers like Bartok, Brahms, and Beethoven, from whose works I had learned so much. I was then heading the music department of Walnut Hill School, an arts preparatory boarding school. Two friends on the faculty—violist Jonathan Bagg (now of the Ciompi Quartet) and his wife Susan Greenberg, a pianist—very kindly asked me to compose something for the faculty recital they were planning together. Little did they or I know it would amount to a 30-minute opus.

The entire three-movement work has a Mahlerian scope and much turmoil, punctuated by a recurring moment of calm reflection that marks the first movement’s introduction and then recurs in the later movements. The moody second movement has been played separately on several occasions. Its opening, slowly rising melody in 6/4 contrasts with a spiky section in 5/8, followed by rhapsodic flights including a cadenza for viola alone. At the heart of the movement, the reflective moment from the first movement appears in its most extended form over rippling piano accompaniment. The rising melody from the opening returns in highly elaborated form before the movement closes with a new kind of resolve.

—Theodore Wiprud

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