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Programme Note

Composer note:

The Sonata for Violin and Piano was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation for presentation by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. This work was composed during the summers of 1972 and 1973 on the shore of Cayuga Lake in upstate New York.

The first movement has a form of a moderately fast moving and free, dramatic recitative; the second movement may remind one of a slow aria, and the third movement follows the Interlude without interruption and suggests a fast and frantic toccata.

The writing for both instruments is soloistic and in a virtuoso manner. Both parts are equally important and often independent from each other. Some new sonorities are explored too, including quarter-tone playing on the violin and plucking strings inside the piano. Although I studied violin as a boy (for about eight years), this is my first solo work for this instrument, with the exception of a student composition written at the Prague Conservatory.


--Karel Husa