New York Women Composers at the Chapel of Good Shepherd Center in Seattle
Karen Bentley Pollick, violin & viola
Heather Bentley, viola
New York Women Composers at the Chapel
Thursday, February 1, 2018 at 8:00 pm
Chapel of Good Shepherd Center
Wayward Music Series
Seattle, Washington
Faye-Ellen Silverman: Memories for solo viola (Spring, 1974)
I Lyrical
II Playful
III Melancholic
IV Angry
Marga Richter: Darkening of the Light for solo viola (1978)
I Lento doloroso
II del movimento precedente
III Allegro risoluto
IV Adagio
V Allegramente
VI Allegro con passione
VII Allegro fervente
VIII Allegro con fuoco
IX Lento cantando
Adrienne Elisha: Inner Voices for solo viola (2008)
Forcefully – Wild, Presto – Dolce – Espressivo – Grave/Legato
Rain Worthington: Mixed Times of Yearning for solo viola (2014) World Premiere
Intermission
Victoria Bond: Woven for violin and viola (2008)
I Spinning
II Knotted
III Tight Weave
IV Open Weave
V Tapestry
Mark Kopytman: Cantus IV: Dedication for violin solo (1986)
Recitando, ben marcato – Dolce, cantando – Con fuoco – Poco più sostenuto –
Largo, dolcissimo – Giocoso – Mesto – Recitando, dolente – Lontano, netto
Jonathan Berger: Sink or Swim for solo violin (2006)
I Molto cantabile
II Risoluto
III Frenetic
IV Lontano, freely
Karen Bentley Pollick: Für HELEN{G}A for solo violin (January, 2018) World Premiere
Memories (1974) by Faye-Ellen Silverman
Memories is a work in four movements: I Lyrical, II Playful, III Melancholic, and IV Angry. The mood of each movement is established by tempo (alternating slower and faster movements), characteristic rhythms, and coloristic techniques typical of strings. The first movement uses string harmonics, the second has double stops, and the third, played muted and without vibrato, uses the special color of the lowest string as well as bent pitches, quarter note trills, and occasional harmonics and double stops. The last movement, with its tremolo and ponticello colors and its wider melodic leaps, exploits the entire range of the viola.
The first movement begins with a three-note motif that is expanded to form longer lines. The second movement contains shifting rhythms. In the third movement the end is the reverse of the beginning. The fourth movement uses repeated notes on ponticello strings, accents, and shifting meters to establish its angry mood.
Darkening of the Light for solo viola (1962) by Marga Richter (b. 1926)
Darkening of the Light, written in 1962 for renowned violist Walter Trampler, is a work with nine short interconnected movements. Each segment, from I-VIII, has its own character, from yearning to turmoil, even rage. Then, in movement IX, (a resolution of movement IV), comes quiet acceptance and peace. Six of the movements follow one another without a perceptible pause, making the work, in essence, one entity.
The light has sunk into the earth:
The image of Darkening of the Light.
Wounding of the Bright.
The Light is veiled, yet still shines.
I Ching 36
Inner Voices for solo viola (2008) by Adrienne Elisha (1958 – 2017)
Adrienne Elisha, a native of Glen Cove, New York, studied violin and composition at Indiana University; she later earned an Artist Diploma in Viola Performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music and a doctorate in composition at the University of Buffalo. She composed Inner Voices in 1998, at the request of composer Ofer Ben-Amots, and performed the world premiere in the summer of the same year, during a festival of new music at Colorado College in Colorado Springs. Subsequently, Adrienne played the piece many times, both in the United States and in Europe.
Inner Voices is a true tour de force in that the violist is required to sing and play simultaneously. The work is framed by a special chord progression where the voice and instrument blend together to produce a mysterious timbre. The chords are played powerfully at the beginning, and in a more subdued form in the middle and at the end. There is a highly virtuosic section, where the bow moves closer and closer to the bridge until it finally ends up on the other side, and finally dissolves into eerie, fluttering noises. Later an espressivo melody in harmonics leads to another fast section played with half finger pressure to create what the composer called “multi-overtones”. A dreamy, almost transfigured version of the opening chords concludes the work.
Mixed Times of Yearning – a miniature for viola (2014) by Rain Worthington
Originally composed in response to a call for viola miniatures – It is an interesting challenge to compose a work that is meant to fit within a very short timeframe, and have it stand as a complete piece of music that moves through a sense of emotional depth and development. The title refers not only to the mixed time signatures within the music, but also to a brief expression of mixed poignancies of yearnings encountered at different times in one’s life. I am delighted that Karen Bentley Pollick will perform the premiere of this work.
Woven for violin and viola (2008) by Victoria Bond
Jack Larsen’s luscious fabric designs are the inspiration for Woven. Rather than trying to translate one art form into another, I have applied the principle of interwoven strands of colored thread to interwoven musical lines. Texture, color and design are the governing elements. Each short movement explores one combination. The work opens with Spinning, in which the motion of the loom becomes the rhythm, while the two intertwining lines exchange musical phrases, spinning around each other. The second movement, Knotted, focuses on both lines in close proximity, “rubbing” against one another in dissonant clusters. Open Weave, the third movement, explores the opposite extreme, with the lines separated and spaced widely apart. Tapestry combines disparate elements, such as transparent and opaque, smooth and prickly, pale and bright, coarse and fine, elastic and brittle.
Cantus IV: Dedication for violin solo (1986) by Mark Kopytman (December 6, 1929 in Ukraine – December 16, 2011)
Cantus IV: Dedication was premiered at Alice Tully Hall on January 26, 1987 by violinist Nina Beilina in memory of her late husband, conductor Israel Chudnovsky. Kopytman’s music is inspired by Jewish folklore transformed through heterophony as a contemporary notational device, depicting the human voice in mourning with swaying and sliding Jewish laments. The Arioso from his 1966 opera Casa Mare is integrated into the piece, followed by a Perinitza (Romanian folk wedding dance).
Sink or Swim for violin solo (2002) by Jonathan Berger was composed for and is dedicated to violinist Livia Sohn. The four movement work is based upon the traditional Scottish-American folksong ’The Water is Wide’, whose closing stanza is:
There is a ship and she sails the seas.
She’s loaded down as deep can be,
But not so deep as the love I’m in
I know not if I sink or swim.
The work was recorded for Naxos Recordings for the CD Miracles and Mud, and has been performed throughout the world by Ms. Sohn on three continents, as well as numerous other violinists. Jonathan Berger’s music is deeply spiritual and hauntingly evocative. These works for string quartet and solo violin include Eli Eli, an adaptation of a beloved Hebrew melody written in memory of journalist Daniel Pearl; Miracles and Mud, a plea for coexistence; for amos, a reflection on the fragility of life; Sink or Swim, a set of variations on a Scottish love song; Doubles, described as “a quartet of profound depth and beauty”.
Für HELEN{G}A for solo violin (January, 2018) by Karen Bentley Pollick
The initial spark that led to the composition of Für HELEN{G}A occurred in the Chapel of Good Shepherd Performance Space while enjoying an inspiring concert by Iranian musician Sahba Sizdahkhani performing on santour and drums. I was seated behind Helena Hillinga, who elicited a moment of laughter and transcendence after the concert in honor of the ephemeral nature of life and the creative spirit. The opening musical material derives from the division of the middle of the piano keyboard, which resides between E & F above middle C, vying to be as close as possible beyond the half step distance imposed by the keyboard. The flutter tones achieved on the violin depict the desire for proximity and harmonic expansion. The left hand pizzicati on the open E string mimic the perpetual four syllable proclamations of the hens that reside around my new home in San Pancho, Mexico. The bass line is created from the solfège note names H E L E N A (B E A E G [French system for N] A) with double stop trills à la Caprice #6 by Niccolò Paganini, harmonics and rhythms, a waltz, and a concluding flourish of arpeggios in a final crescendo as an homage to Arvo Pärt’s Fratres with a nod to Beethoven en route, before retreating into the primordial E & F via gossamer harmonics.
Funded in part by a Seed Money Grant from New York Women Composers. Repertoire selected from a call for scores in November, 2017 from NYWC membership. I am honored to represent these jewels of the solo viola repertoire and violin/viola duo in concert at the Chapel of Good Shepherd Center tonight.
Please visit these composer websites to discover more about their unique lives and sonic creations:
http://www.newyorkwomencomposers.org/
http://www.fayeellensilverman.com/
https://www.newmusicusa.org/profile/aelisha/