Seeing through Sound:  compositions by Ivan Sokolov

Ivan Sokolov

Sonata for Viola and Piano (2006), along with the 2002 cello and 2005 violin sonatas, form a triad of works, united by a similar opening motive. The Viola Sonata can be seen as an interlude between the violin and cello sonatas – the midway point between the two other members of a string trio.  This one-movement sonata is comprised of four sections resembling the construction of a sonata or symphony cycle. The agitated opening Allegro is followed by a nocturne; the impetuous finale is preceded by a short scherzo-like link. Each section concludes with a funereal-like iteration of the beginning theme before its transcendental transformation. Perhaps it is possible to find some light irony or melancholic smile in the concept. Or perhaps it�s absolutely serious music. I don�t know�The sonata is dedicated to the violist Carol Allen — a friend of many years

In The Heaven (1992) is a children�s piece about one little cloud.  At the beginning, the cloud is light and white, then turns grey with the wind, rain, thunder and lightning. A rainbow appears and the clouds become fainter until they disappear.  This composition is an allegory of our lives from good to bad, and ultimately returning to good at the end.

Elegie for Solo Viola (2001) is a lyrical piece composed for English violist Carol Allen. The violist must play and interpret from deep within their soul. At the end the spirit comes from above and the material world lies underneath. I don’t know if this represents death or not.

Ole Saxe

Ole Saxe was born in April 1952 in Copenhagen, and has lived in Sweden since 1973, now at Lake Siljan. As a naturopath and psychodramatist he is head of the School of Holistic Therapy, giving classes in alternative medicine, relaxation therapy and drama. Apart from piano, he plays drums and guitar and loves to sing and play in a world music band for which he writes songs in various styles. As a composer he has recorded 3 albums of relaxation music inspired by the seven seas and Scandinavian nature, as written four musicals, among others the fairytale Travel Companion by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Other compositions include settings of Swedish poems by Gustav Fr�ding and Per Lagerkvist, a string quartet inspired by Cuban salsa rhythms, and in 2000 a Dance Suite of contemporary dances for solo violin written for Karen Bentley, then arranged for symphony orchestra and premiered in 2002 with Karen and Redwood Symphony Orchestra. Recently, his Summers Suite setting of 6 poems by Nobel Prize winner Harry Martinsson was performed in New York and Sweden by soprano Ulla Westlund and the chamber music trio Musical Seasons (youtube.com/misetersaxe). Ole Saxe is a great lover of all waters. Whenever he gets a chance he is either swimming, paddling his kayak or sailing. www.helhetsterapi.org/olesaxe

Tango Orientale was originally written for clarinet and piano. Here it is scored for viola and piano. In this work the multicultural influences of the tango tradition seek out its roots from the Orient. The Andalusian scale reminds us of the Moorian occupation of Spain that left Andalusia with a rich inheritance of music and art. Ages later, this musical influence would inspire Latin American music. When the clarinet version of Tango Orientale toured South America with Kjell Fag�us and his sextet, it found its way to Argentina, the homeland of tango.
–Ole Saxe

Ivan Sokolov

Solnechnaya Sonata for Violin and Piano was written in August 2005. The first movement, Allegro moderato is a sonata form in E minor and is filled with a lyric-epic atmosphere and impressions from the beauty of Russian nature. Working on it, I was listening to Russian music and especially Alexander Glazunov’s Karelian Legend (op. 99, 1916). The second movement Andante is in a pastoral, contemplative mood — with a kinship to the symphonic music by Vassily Kalinnikov, suggestive of memories of respite in the open air. In the middle section there appears an image of a wide river, smoothly bearing its waters. In the recapitulation, you can hear bird singing. This bird’s singing comes closer to us in the third movement, Scherzo, and we look at it as if through an “ear microscope.” The finale, Allegro vivace, and the dramaturgical center of the Sonata, is in rondo form. It has only one theme, but some images from the previous movements are reflected and reach their conclusions in this finale. After a lyrical development, the music gradually becomes brighter and ends with a coda in E Major, which is reminiscent of a burst of sunlight. The entire piece is named for this coda — the Solnechnaya (Sunlight) Sonata.

I am grateful to the wonderful violinist Karen Bentley Pollick for her request to write this music and for agreeing to perform it.
–Ivan Sokolov

Jan Vičar

From the Czech Republic, Jan Vičar (born on 5 May 1949 in Olomouc) is a prolific composer whose compositions have been performed and recorded by leading Czech soloists, orchestras and choirs in the Czech Republic, United States, Canada and Japan. He has served as Editor-in-chief of the leading Czech music journal Hudebn� rozhledy. As a Fulbright/CIES Scholar-in-residence, he lectured at eight United States universities in 1998 and 1999. He has published five books including Imprints: Essays on Czech Music and Aesthetics (2005, in English). He is a professor of music at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, and head of the Musicology Department of Palacky University in Olomouc. As a visiting professor, he taught composition and music theory at Birmingham-Southern College, Alabama, in the fall of 2005. He has been a member of Birmingham Art Music Alliance since 2006.
www.musicology.upol.cz/profiles/vicarzivot.html

Usp�vanky/Lullabies for Violin and Piano (2006) was written for violinist Karen Bentley Pollick and pianist Ivan Sokolov to supplement the program of their March recital at Birmingham-Southern College where I spent fall semester 2005. It is a lyrical parallel to Homage to Fiddlers, which was premiered at BSC. It is similarly based on the folk music of my native country. The composition is generated from Moravian lullabies, which I have chosen from the repertory of folk singer, Zdena Hovorkov�. I have expanded the augmented fourth, the governing feature of the Lydian mode, and constructed a bi-tonal work: a mother sings and rocks her baby (simple tune in piano in Ab major), but the child�s dreaming comes from somewhere else (violin in D major).
–Jan Vičar

Dmitry Shostakovich

Four Preludes from Op.34  In the winter of 1932-1933, Shostakovich was in the middle of writing his opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and had just finished the score for Counterplan, a film about hardworking machinists in a turbine factory in Leningrad. For fun, Shostakovich turned his hand to piano works, 24 preludes and the first piano concerto, and then to a cello sonata. Shostakovich’s 24 preludes are in the same key sequence as Chopin’s, using all the major and minor keys in the usual order, and relying on the same general principles of musical economy. He knew of several sets of preludes, all written on the 24-section Chopin “model,” beginning with Alkan in 1847, then Blumenfeld (1892), Scriabin (1896), Cesar Cui (1903), Gli�re(1907), and Rachmaninov (composed between 1892 and 1910). Indeed, in the same winter Shostakovich wrote his set, so did Boris Goltz and Valery Zhelobinsky. There the similarities end. Shostakovich and Chopin wrote 24 preludes, economic and striking, but their musical content is as different as these two personalities were, a hundred years apart. 19 of the 24 Piano Preludes of Op. 34 were transcribed for violin and piano in the 1930s by Dmitri Tsyganov, longtime first violinist of the Beethoven String Quartet and a friend of the composer. Shostakovich stated “When I hear the transcriptions, I forget meanwhile that I actually composed the Preludes for piano. They sound so violinistic.”  Lera Auerbach completed the violin/piano arrangement of the remaining five preludes in 2000.