Viola SKU: HL.48024561
Composed by Robin Holloway. Boosey & Hawkes Chamber Music. Classical. Softcover. 18 pages. Duration 1440 seconds. Boosey & Hawkes #M060134159. Published by Boosey & Hawkes (HL.48024561). ISBN 9781784543518. 0.078 inches.
This Sonata for Viola (unaccompanied) was written in 1999. The soloists C-string is tuned down a semitone for the entire piece, giving a duskier quality to the tone-colour, and setting up in the very first bar the characteristic melodic/harmonic shape that infiltrates all four movements. I - slowish and thoughtful - gradually expands this opening idea into cantilena and pattern, as prelude to II - Vivacissimo - played muted throughout, a tremolando tarantella, with contrasting section, chunky double-stops, alternating withsomething of a gigue. III - adagio - rhapsodic and quasi-improvisando, enclosing a simple self-contained melody, and linking into IV, where the gigue-like material from the scherzo provides the principal substance, expanding into an ardent cantabile, and calminginto the Coda not just the finale but, in its reminiscences of I, to the sonata as a whole.
