Sonata for Solo Violin

Instrumentation

Violin

Score, download - 24.00MB

Other Information

This three movement sonata for solo violin was first performed at The Cedar Park Music and Arts Centre, Derby on Friday 23rd March 2001 by Heleen Hulst [violin]. For the performer´s biographies see below.

The Sonata for Solo Violin is in three movements:

Movement 1, in G minor, is rhapsodic in structure and based on the opening stately theme: G, A, B flat, A, D which undergoes considerable development with many scalic passages and a range of technical skills.

Movement 2, in G major, is lyrical and is marked Adagio affettuoso e teneramente. Small decorative passages are contrasted with double-stopping in a section with conflicting major/minor passages before ending with a grand statement in the tonic major.

Movement 3, in D major, is a joyous Rondo with a quasi-Mozartean opening which very quickly develops into a agility exercise for the violinist culminating in huge chords which bring the work to a triumphant conclusion.

The .pdf score which is accessible from this page shows the whole of the first movement and the first pages of the second and third movements. Further details and a score are available from the composer.

Review of the concert in the Derby Evening Telegraph:

"At last we´ve started challenging the old idea that Schumann´s later music isn’t up to the level of his earlier work. Hulst and Bouwhuis obviously don’t accept it, judging by the conviction they brought to his A minor Violin Sonata. They opened their recital with some beautifully poised Bach. Hulst’s sparing use of vibrato paid off in terms of clarity and refinement. John Mackenzie’s Sonata for Solo Violin turned out to be a delightful piece, inventively spinning virtuoso writing from simple material. In a passionate, fiery account of Janacek’s Sonata, Hulst and Bouwhuis followed every twist and turn of the music’s abrupt mood swings. Their performance of Ravel’s Sonata was one of the most compelling I have ever heard. The obsessive quality they brought out in the middle movement was balanced by some marvelously elegant playing elsewhere. The transcription of Parasha’s song from Stravinsky’s opera Mavra was the perfect encore."

The violinist HELEEN HULST studied with Vera Beths at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where she gained her performance degree. in recent years she has been a member of the Schoenberg- and Asko Ensemble, Remix Porto, Combattimento Consort, Van Swieten Society and l’Archibudelli with whom she made several recordings as well as tours through America, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Russia and Europe. Her wide interest brought her to collaborations with ZTHollandia, the Netherlands Dans Theater and choreographer Paul Selwyn Norton. In 1995 and 1997 she participated in the Tanglewood Music Festival (USA) where she both times was awarded the prize for ‘outstanding violinist’. She is a sought-after chamber musician both as violist and violinist, as contemporary specialist and as baroque violinist. In 2009 Martijn Padding wrote the violin concerto ‘White Eagle’ for Heleen and the Asko Ensemble which won the Edison Prize in 2011. With pianist Gerard Bouwhuis she forms a duo which concentrates on new music, many composers have written pieces for them among others Cornelis de Bondt, Martijn Padding, Paul Termos, Peter Adriaansz and Guus Janssen. They recorded the complete violin-piano repertoire by Charles Ives on BV HAAST. In 2005 they started the group Nieuw Amsterdams Peil which concentrates on unconducted chamber music of the 20th and 21th century.