Composed: 2017
Duration: 10 minutes
First Performance: 22nd November 2017, the Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall, performed by Alexander Rozhdestvensky and Josiane Marfut
Second Performance: The British Embassy in Vienna in October 2022: the latter performed by the acclaimed young violinist Chu-Yu Yang and pianist Eric McElroy.
It is always a great pleasure to be able to write a work for a musician of the calibre of Sasha Rozhdestvensky who is not only an internationally acclaimed artist but also a friend. In 2017 I decided to revisit my early Sonata for Flute and Piano and arrange it for solo violin and piano. Although, in essence the violin sonata remains the same as the original work, recasting it as a violin sonata has allowed me to explore a wider range of textures and expressive possibilities which I hope brings a new freshness to this early work.
The work is in two movements: 1. Lento – Andante – Lento and 2. Allegro scherzando – Andante – Allegro.
It opens in a melancholic mood and contrasts an initial melodic idea – passed between violin and piano – with a more plaintive melody accompanied by insistent piano chords. After a more affirmative section the chordal idea returns, heralding a canonic restatement of its main melodic idea. The second movement, in contrast, begins solidly in the key of C major, with scalic figures in both instruments. This leads to the movement’s first subject, a diatonic melody accompanied by a highly syncopated idea in the piano. The second subject is more lyrical and passionate and gives way, via a short cadenza for piano, to a fugato section. After the ‘recapitulation’ of the first and second subjects, the work ends in a flourish, with the violin and piano vying for the final word.