Description

My Sonata for Violin and Orchestra consists of three movements. The first movement (Grave) is serious and monumental in character. The solo violin starts playing soft, slowly undulating sixteenths, which form patterns reminiscent of Bach, but seem not to be connected to any clear tonality. After a while the orchestra enters, first with chords, which are a combination of G sharp minor and G major and then starting to develop passacaglia-type chord sequences interrupted by low clusters, gaining strength in every appearance. At first the solo violin seems to be unaware of this, but after a while it also starts to react to the developments in the orchestra. A culmination is reached, after which there is a diminuendo to the original dynamics of the movement. The passacaglia motives return, but this time in an inverted form, combined with high clusters. The movement ends with alternating high and low clusters in the orchestra, the solo violin rising ever higher into the skies.

The second movement (Allegretto) brings in some totally different kind of music: irregular rhythmic impulses in the orchestra and fanfare-like, vigorous and joyous motives in the violin. Everything starts softly and mysteriously, but soon the orchestra starts to imitate the solo violin and all this results into a crescendo, but also brings in a more lamenting motive in the violin, accompanied by rapid processions of descending chords in the orchestra. The music tries to return to its joyful origins, but in the end its character becomes more and more desperate, culminating in a breath-taking coda (Furioso).

The last movement starts attacca with colossal chords in the orchestra combining the tonalities of C sharp minor and C major. There is a defiant cadenza, consisting of material from the first movement, but in the end the violin seems to lose all hope and stops playing. The orchestra and the violin start a dialogue consisting partly of quotations from Beethoven's Streichquartett op. 135 ('Muss es sein?'). The music becomes more hopeful and finally finds peace, the solo violin ascending to heaven, accompanied by a ritualistic dialogue of high and low clusters in the orchestra.

- Olli Mustonen

Instrumentation

3233 4331 03 1, cel, str [pic, bcl, cbsn]

Category

Works for Soloist(s) and Orchestra

Premiere

Kristian Winther, violin, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Olli Mustonen, cond. Metropolis New Music Festival 2014, April 9, 2014, Melbourne

Movements

I Grave, II Allegretto, III Colossale

Commisioned by / dedications

Commissioned by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

More

• Read the score on publisher's site

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