SKU: BR.EB-9386

ISBN 9790004188569. 0 x 0 inches.

The Violin Sonata No. 1 in E minor, op. 73, a Grand Sonata for Violin and Piano, occupies an important position in Joachim Raff's oeuvre: it reflects numerous artistic, aesthetic, biographical, and reception-historical aspects characteristic of Raff. The work was composed in Weimar in 1854, when Raff was going through a process of artistic self-discovery. He increasingly distanced himself from his mentor Franz Liszt and intensively explored Wagner as well as the ideal of absolute music - this is also reflected in the music of the sonata. While Raff described the first two movements as objectified, he perceived the last two movements as a piece of him, that is, not free of extra-musical influences.The 1st movement, with its expansive main theme, is reminiscent of Mendelssohn; the 2nd movement reveals the refinement of classical-romantic work with musical material. The 3rd movement, with its partly rhythmic, virtuoso accompanying figures and harmonically advanced passages, allows a deeply romantic, almost tormented insight into a soul life a la Sturm und Drang. The partly irascible last movement revisits already familiar themes and thus creates a musical framework.In collaboration with the Joachim-Raff-Archiv Lachen (CH)

First Urtext Edition of the Grand Sonata for Violin and Piano.

SKU: PR.164002390

UPC: 680160038091.

I became interested in the work of Plato through my friend and collaborator, the writer and philosopher Paul Woodruff. Paul's new translation, with Alexander Nehamas, of the Symposium gave me insights into ancient Greek ways of thinking about Love, Beauty, and Wisdom -- and managed to keep the earthy, and often bawdy side of it all in full view. But their new translation of Plato's later dialogue Phaedrus went even further: the beauty of the speeches is breathtaking, and the discourse itself is enough to keep one awake at night. Basically the Great Speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus dialogue has to do with the place of Eros in the world, and with the conflict in the soul between fleshly pleasure and philosophic discovery. I will not attempt to encapsulate this brilliant discourse in a program note: suffice it to say that reading it gave rise to my two-sided work for clarinet, violin, and piano, Phaedrus. The first movement represents the Philosophic life, and is thus subtitled Apollo's Lyre (Invocation and Hymn). It begins with an unaccompanied melody for the clarinet, which (after a pair of harp-like flourishes for the piano, expands into an accompanied canon. The voices in the dialogue (clarinet and violin) follow each other by a prescribed number of beats, but the music is totally devoid of any meter at all. The piano, representing the lyre, accompanies this lyric love-feast with repeated strummed chords. The canon has three large sections, and ends with violin echoing the unaccompanied clarinet invocation as the sound of the lyre fades. The second movement, called Dionysus' Dream-Orgy (Ritual Dance) presents, after a brief introduction, another kind of unmetered music. Rather than long lyric flights of philosophic song, however, this time we hear a unison dance of unbridled energy and sensual transport. The piece soon forms itself into a loose arch form, with contrasting metered dance sections divided by the unison unmetered orgy tune. Midway through the movement, Apollo's melody returns from the first movement, but it is a temporary reminiscence. The orgiastic dance returns, reaches a climax, and ends with a stomping of feet. While Plato asserts that a proper balance between lust and reason is necessary in all men, he (naturally) gives the nod to Philosophy as the better choice in which to live. Not so in my music: the two sides are meant to coexist and to complement each other. No sides are taken. Phaedrus was commissioned of the Verdehr Trio by Michigan State University. It is dedicated to the Vedehr Trio with great affection and admiration.