Recital: Natalie Boberg '23, Violin

River Sawchyn | Chasing Sculptures for solo violin (2022) - For Natalie

Textures: Fluid, Playful, Breathy, Light

Program note

This piece, which was written for Natalie, started as an improvisation late at night, in a practice hut at summer camp. It turned into a larger work when another composer and I challenged each other to write music based on statues around the camp. The statue that caught my eye, titled Chase, by Jack Gron, was what I interpreted to be some type of sailboat, precariously sitting on one half of a scale. This invoked, to me, a flitty character surrounded by uncertainty. The folk element of my music comes from my background as a fiddle player. As I discussed this with Natalie, her love for all types of music was very apparent. The piece is book-ended with sections marked “improvisatory,” the latter of which ends with an extra challenge to the player, to completely improvise their own ending as they see fit.                                      – River Sawchyn

William Grant Still | Suite for Violin and Piano

African Dancer
Mother and Child
Gamin

Textures: Funky, Deep, Tender, Smooth, Rich, Raw

Program note

Composer, conductor, and arranger, William Grant Still was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, an intellectual and cultural movement centered in New York between the two World Wars that gave a voice to the African-American identity in the arts. His Suite for Violin and Piano (1943) is in three movements, each inspired by a work of visual art from the Harlem Renaissance period. “When I was asked to compose a suite for violin and piano,” he wrote, “I thought of three contemporary Negro artists whom I admired and resolved to try to catch in music my feeling for an outstanding work by each of them.” The first movement takes its inspiration from a sculpture entitled African Dancer, a writhing nude by sculptor Richmond Barthé (1901-1989) that conveys the strength and muscular vitality of the dancing African body under the influence of music. The composer’s melodic gifts are on full display in the second movement, inspired by a number of paintings and sculptures each entitled Mother and Child created by Sargent Johnson (1887-1967) in the 1920s and 1930s. This lyrical and soulful lullaby, with its gentle syncopations and constant wavering between major and minor, encapsulates the complex emotions of maternal love. The final movement in the suite is based on the bust of a small child entitled Gamin by sculptor Augusta Savage (1892-1962). Light-hearted and carefree, it evokes an age – long past – when small children were allowed to play in the streets to fashion as much mischief and mayhem as their little minds could devise.
– Donald G. Gíslason

Johann Sebastian Bach | Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1004

Textures: Breathy, Fluid, Refined, Delicate, Heavy, Dark, Rippled, Bumpy, Harsh

Program note

The Chaconne is the final movement of Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor for solo violin. Composed in the early 1700s, it is considered one of the most challenging and iconic pieces in the solo violin repertoire. The Chaconne is a set of variations over a repeating harmonic progression, and in this piece, Bach showcases his mastery of counterpoint, harmony, and form. The piece begins with a solemn and majestic introduction, setting the stage for the variations to come. The Chaconne then unfolds over a series of 64 variations, each building on the previous one while maintaining the harmonic progression. Bach explores a wide range of moods and techniques, from virtuosic runs and double stops to tender lyrical passages and intricate contrapuntal lines. Despite being over 300 years old, the Bach Chaconne remains a cornerstone of the solo violin repertoire, a testament to Bach's unparalleled skill and creativity as a composer. Its enduring popularity underscores its timeless beauty and the universality of the human experience it captures.

Grażyna Bacewicz | String Quartet No. 5

Moderato
Scherzo (Fuga)
Chorale
Variazioni

Textures: Fresh, Playful, Jagged, Heavy, Light, Eclectic

Program note

Grażyna Bacewicz’s String Quartet No. 5, composed in 1955, consists of four movements. Like many other of the composer’s pieces, the first movement (Moderato), begins with a small initial motif – a descending second in the first violin, repeated in an ascending version in the other instruments. Out of this tiny cell, there emerge other motifs that comprise the first theme. The overall structure of the movement is Sonata-Allegro with two themes, but the way the sound material is used is very different from neoclassical models. This is clearly seen in the second theme, folk in its spirit, the melodic distinctiveness of which disappears in repeated figures played arco and pizzicato, tremolos and trills. String Quartet No. 5 testifies to a continuous evolution of the composer’s sound language, with the old formal principles remaining largely preserved. Bacewicz’s practical knowledge of the technical possibilities of string instruments, combined with her color imagination, enabled her to create a type of narrative frequently shaped by the changeability of sound forms.

Gabriella Smith | Carrot Revolution (2015)

Textures: Funky, Eclectic, Playful, Shiny, Soft, Rippled, Scratchy, Harsh

Program note

I wrote Carrot Revolution in 2015 for my friends the Aizuri Quartet. It was commissioned by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia for their exhibition The Order of Things, in which they commissioned 3 visual artists and myself to respond to Dr. Barnes’ distinctive “ensembles,” the unique ways in which he arranged his acquired paintings along with metal objects, furniture, and pottery, juxtaposing them in ways that bring out their similarities and differences in shape, color, and texture. While walking around the Barnes looking for inspiration for this string quartet, I suddenly remembered a Cezanne quote I’d heard years ago (though which I later learned was misattributed to him): “The day will come when a single, freshly observed carrot will start a revolution.” And I knew immediately that my piece would be called Carrot Revolution. I envisioned the piece as a celebration of that spirit of fresh observation and of new ways of looking at old things, such as the string quartet—a two-hundred-year-old genre—as well as some of my even older musical influences (Bach, Perotin, Gregorian chant, Georgian folk songs, and Celtic fiddle tunes). The piece is a patchwork of my wildly contrasting influences and full of weird, unexpected juxtapositions and intersecting planes of sound, inspired by the way Barnes' ensembles show old works in new contexts and draw connections between things we don’t think of as being related.                                
– Gabriella Smith