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SOLI ARTIST’S NOTE when the writing is at the edge of what is playable, it is always possible, and the struggle There is nothing like the experience of being can even add to the content. Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117 (1944) Béla Bartók (1881-1945) completely alone on stage, just with my violin. 1 I. Tempo di ciaccona [14.12] It is the ultimate soul-baring communion both The recording process was extraordinarily 2 II. Fuga. Risoluto, non troppo vivo [5.00] with myself and with the audience. And it is intense, not only because I was alone in the 3 III. Melodia. Adagio [8.36] no coincidence that many of the works written hall. The emotional rawness of the material 4 IV. Presto. [6.09] for solo violin explore the depths of our shared took its toll each day, so in the evening, to play human experience through this intense medium. a Kurtag miniature was a wonderful balm. I Three Miniatures for Solo Violin (2001) George Benjamin (b.1960) 5 I. A Lullaby for Lalit [3.52] would like to say an enormous thank you to Nick 6 II. A Canon for Sally [2.29] For musicians, composers and performers alike, Parker and Mike Hatch who produced and 7 III. Lauer Lied [3.16] sound is our medium. Through sound we must engineered this disc, and for the invaluable express everything we wish to communicate. support they gave during the recording sessions. 8 Cadenza (1984) Krzysztof Penderecki (b.1933) [10.05] The works on this disc take the violin to its From Four Lauds Elliott Carter (1908-2012) expressive limits. The technical demands on Tamsin Waley-Cohen 9 I. Statement – Remembering Aaron (1999) [4.09] the performer are always in the service of 0 III. Rhapsodic Musings (2000) [3.36] heightened expression, whether of ecstasy, pain, doubt, loneliness, desperation, or Six Miniatures György Kurtág (b.1926) acceptance and peace. For me, this is at the q In Nomine all’ungherese (Damjanich emlékko) (2001) [5.45] heart of why I play the violin, and why I play w Anziksz Kellerannanak (Postcard to Anna Keller) (1993) [0.31] music, to explore our inner life through the e Hommage a John Cage (1987, rev.1991) [1.53] language of sound. r Thomas Blum in memoriam (1995) [2.38] t ...féerie d’automne... (2004) [2.26] Each composer on this disc displays a great y Hommage a JSB (2005) [1.53] depth of knowledge and understanding of the Total timings: [76.33] instrument, not only how it can be played, but of how natural resonances interact, uniting or jarring or distorting, often using the open strings TAMSIN WALEY-COHEN VIOLIN as building blocks. Although there are moments www.signumrecords.com - 3 - PROGRAMME NOTE set. Bartók immediately accepted Menuhin’s They persist – though the fugue subject of and this one certainly rises to the challenge. It commission for a similar solo piece, on which the second movement starts out from a bold begins, however, as if recalling that a cadenza Every musical genre has its own aura, its own he worked during a winter stay in Asheville, rising minor third, also including gaps that is in origin a cadence, a fall, falling as it does tradition, its own signal masterpieces. Where North Carolina. He completed the sonata in invite dialogue treatment, as in the passage through a minor second, from A flat to G, the the unaccompanied solo violin is concerned, March 1944, and Menuhin gave the first about halfway through where the theme, arco, instrument’s lowest note. Out of this comes the magnetic poles are Bach’s set of three performance on November 26 that year, again is in canon with itself in inversion, pizzicato. a scalewise melodic motif that is developed each of sonatas and partitas, then Paganini’s at Carnegie Hall. With only ten months left to The fugue is in four parts, but often, as in mightily before the piece returns whence it came. collection of twelve caprices. During the century him, Bartók worked on his Third Piano Concerto Bach’s solo string music, one or more will be after Paganini these works remained without and Viola Concerto, but the Sonata for Solo only implicit. Later yet, all written around the turn of successor, ready to guide and focus composers Violin was the last work he finished. the millennium, are the pieces by George who came so much later. The ensuing ‘Melodia’ is based on a theme Benjamin, Elliott Carter and György Kurtág, The Bach piece he studied most closely would related to the first movement’s second subject. Benjamin’s Three Miniatures dating from 2001. With Bartók the connection to Bach, in seem to have been the Sonata in G minor, which In ternary form, the music has a muted middle All were written for friends: the violinist Jagdish particular, is clear. So is the connection to he followed in matters of tonality (even if his section of rustlings and tremblings such as Mistry, whose daughter receives a lullaby; the the violin, for which he wrote two mature G minor is some way from Bach’s) and form, Bartók himself categorized as night music. The music publisher Sally Cavender, Benjamin’s sonatas with piano (plus a student piece that putting a fugue in second place and a slow reprise, very much altered, closes in harmonics. staunchest advocate; and Klaus Lauer, who is by no means negligible), two concertos, six movement in B flat third – though the chaconne presented concerts of new music at his hotel quartets and other chamber pieces. However, rhythm of his opening movement surely nods In final place comes a perpetuum mobile, where in Badenweiler, where the three pieces had he might never have composed for violin to the monumental finale of Bach’s Partita in Bartók introduced microtones as an option. The their first complete performance at the hands alone without the encouragement of Yehudi D minor. This is the rhythm of the first subject, activity breaks off for two episodes of folk-style of another friend, Irvine Arditti. According to Menuhin. Menuhin, who had been led to and it returns emphatically at the start of fiddle playing, pentatonic and then diatonic. the composer, they all explore ‘different facets Bartók by Antal Doráti, a former pupil of the development section and again in the of the same compositional technique’, which the composer’s, had programmed both the recapitulation, with more flowing material Coming forward forty years, Krzysztof perhaps has to do with a modality rooted in Second Violin Concerto and the First Violin in contrast. Venturing away again from the Penderecki’s Cadenza was written in 1984, the instrument’s tuning and with canonic Sonata for the autumn of 1943. Before smoother harmony of his Concerto for when the composer was well into his more processes not limited to the second piece. The performing the latter he arranged to meet Orchestra, Bartók spikes his motifs with fourths sober, neo-Romantic phase and had left behind first is a sombre melody with double stops and Bartók, who duly attended the recital, at and seconds. the novel string effects of his youth. A cadenza accompanying open strings, lifting off into the Carnegie Hall, at which the renowned violinist is normally an unaccompanied dazzle in the upper air of harmonics. ‘A Canon for Sally’, as also played the Sonata in C from the Bach midst of a concerto, especially a first movement, canons will, mixes constraint and freedom. In - 4 - - 5 - the finale, delicate pizzicato music prefaces Kurtág, who, in parallel with his vast array of friend who, forty years before, conducted the and accompanies the song. Games for piano, put together a large collection first performance of the composer’s Viola of Signs, Games and Messages for solo string Concerto. Often Kurtág’s memorials are written The two Carter pieces come from his set of instruments and small groups, the violin in despite of death; this is one of his fiercest Four Lauds, honouring musicians whose volume containing pieces written between 1989 and most touching. friendship he enjoyed for many years. ‘Statement and 2004. – Remembering Aaron’ (1999) is a tribute Another recurrent type among Kurtág’s to Copland, which, Carter said, ‘suggests the The dimensions are those of a telegram, instrumental inventions is the homage. warmth and generosity and nobility’ of his an inscription or, indeed, a postcard – ‘A ‘Hommage à John Cage – Faltering Words’ (1987, character and also includes ideas from his Postcard to Anna Keller’ (1993) as it might be, rev. 1991) has the violin trying to enunciate Ukelele Serenade, an early jazz-style piece which was dashed off, a scrap of a children’s and failing, time and again. for violin and piano – worked, however, into song, on the day the dedicatee was born, her music of reach and grandeur. Improvisatory father being the violinist András Keller. By contrast, ‘Hommage à J.S.B.’ runs and passionate, ‘Rhapsodic Musings’ (2000) continuously through widening circles, though was an eightieth-birthday present for Robert ‘In nomine – all’ongharese’ (2001) was eventually it, too, starts to falter. This is the Mann, who, as leader of the Juilliard Quartet, Kurtág’s contribution to a festoon of pieces piece Kurtág placed first when publishing his played an important part in establishing commissioned for the festival of new chamber violin pieces, and of course it hails as well across Carter’s quartets in the repertory. His initials music at Witten, all based on the polyphonic the centuries to one of the prime movers of the are planted in the title and also in the music, model that had stimulated English composers solo violin repertoire.