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First Sonata for Violin & Piano
Arioso & Tarantelle for Cello & Piano
Second Sonata for Violin & Piano
Robert Ward, Pulitzer Prize winner for his opera The Crucible, studied at the Eastman School of Music, The Juilliard School, and the Berkshire Music Center. He has taught at Queens College, Columbia University, Juilliard and Duke University where he held the Mary Duke Biddle Chair in Music. He was the Director of the Third Street Music School Settlement, Assistant to the President of Juilliard, and Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation and Highgate Press before becoming President of the North Carolina School of the Arts in 1967. He retired from Duke University in 1988. He has lectured and conducted widely in this country, Europe, the Far East and Latin America. His operas, symphonies, concerti, shorter orchestral works and songs have been heard frequently through performances and recordings here and abroad. Recent additions to his long list of awards are the Gold Baton Award of the American Symphony Orchestra League in 1991, an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1992, and the Alfred I. DuPont Award from the Delaware Symphony.
My First Sonata for Violin and Piano was written for Herbert Sorkin, violin, and Brooks Smith, piano, who gave the premiere in Washington at the National Gallery of Art in 1950. The opening movement begins with a meditative arioso in three-part form, followed by a first block of fast music based on two rhythmically jagged tunes. After a first climax, a second block of lyric music occurs which ends with a brief reminder of the opening arioso in a quicker tempo. Now in succession there are three sections developing the first and second blocks of fast music, which culminate in a greatly intensified statement of the opening arioso. To conclude the movement, variants of the original fast music are heard, but in this recapitulation the restless tunes are subdued and the lyric melody becomes ardent.
The second movement is based on a brief motive and a tone row and employs twelve tone procedures with a difference. I have never found atonality compatible with my musical nature or ideas. Nor am I willing to forego the profound expressive potential of tonal modulation. I share the well considered conclusions of Hindemith and Bartok that tonality is rooted in deep acoustical phenomena. The motive and the tone row are heard some fifty times, together or separately, but in groupings which follow the tonal pattern of the large sonata form.
The Arioso and Tarantelle was the first commission of the Kindler Foundation. Raya Garbousova and Theodore Saidenburg gave the first performance in 1955 in Washington, D.C. The work was written in memory of the great cellist and conductor, Hans Kindler. It uses traditional forms. The movements are virtuoso display pieces written with the hope that they might soothe and then dazzle the listener.
My Second Sonata for Violin and Piano might best be described as a Romantic Sonata utilizing a cyclic structure. That is to say that three of the four themes heard in the first movement recur in later movements in varied form. Each movement also has thematic material heard only in that movement. Hopefully this gives a sense of unity to the work as it moves from the quiet contemplation of the opening through the storm and stress of the first allegro to the dreamy dance-like second movement and on to the vigorous fugue which concludes the work. Hopefully the listener will find his or her reasons for hearing me out and enjoying the music. More than that I do not ask. The Sonata was written for Nicholas Kitchen, violin, and Curt Cacioppo, piano, who premiered the work on the Duke Artist Series in 1991.
Serenade for Mallarmé was commissioned by the Mallarmé Chamber Players and first performed in 1991 at Duke University.
Having considered the potential of many musical ideas for several weeks, suddenly at a very early hour one morning five of them emerged as the themes that together would become my Serenade. Two of them would be the themes for the contrapuntal opening allegro. A melancholy tune sung by the viola and cello with a playful obligato in the flute and some unlikely interruptions in the piano would be the second movement. The Finale would combine a kittenish Scherzo and a broad lyric tune to conclude the piece.
In trying to write idiomatically for the four disparate instruments I found myself attaching human traits to the individual parts. As the work grew I began to envision a kind of scenario, for a quartet of modern dancers perhaps, inspired by the moods and structure of the various movements. I shall not divulge my scenario, but I would encourage the listener to let the imagination run free and create whatever scenario hearing the music might stimulate.
Vartan Manoogian: Soloist with the Indianapolis, University of Madison-Wisconsin, Suisse Romande, Baleares Symphony orchestras and many others. Chamber music with Claremont String Quartet, the Mozart Trio, and the Karp/Manoogian Trio. He has taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and Indiana University, and presently teaches at the Genoa (Spain)
International Festival of Musical Interpretation and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Anne Epperson: Eminent Coach-accompanist and teacher. Winner of National Federation of Music Clubs Biennial Award, 1967. Has served on the faculties of University of Southern California, the Juilliard School, The North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Aspen Music Festival and presently at the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Mark Ward: 1973 winner of the Charleston Symphony Concerto Competition, soloist in Recital for Cello and Eight Dancerswith the Pennsylvania Ballet, member of Davidsbundler Chamber Players and the Delaware Symphony.
Margo Garrett: Internationally known Pianist-coach-accompanist. Has served on the faculties of the Manhattan School of Music, Sarah Lawrence College, The Juilliard School and the University of Minnesota.
Nicholas Kitchen: Violin prodigy who has made an international career as soloist, Chamber music player and teacher in the past decade. Has toured widely in Europe, South and Latin America, Japan and the United States both as soloist and as first violin of the Borromeo String Quartet. He teaches at the New England Conservatory and gives master classes at the Fletcher School of Music.
Joseph Kitchen: Pianist and organist who performs widely in the southeast with his son, Nicholas. Professor of Mathematics at Duke University.
Anna Wilson: Flutist and founder of the Mallarmé Chamber Players based in Durham, North Carolina. Group has performed at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina and in many other cities in the Southeast.
Jonathan Bagg: violist with the Ciompi Quartet and Mallarmé. Soloist with Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, the Monadnock Music Orchestra and the New Haven Symphony. Was principal violist with the New Hampshire Symphony until he joined the faculty of Duke University.
Fred Raimi: Cellist of Mallarmé and the Ciompi String Quartet. Won 1970 International Cello Competition in Portugal. Has performed in Spoleto and Marlboro Festivals and Monadnock Music. Presently on faculty of Duke University.
Jane Hawkins: Pianist in concerts with the Dorian Quintet, Ciompi Quartet, Chicago Symphony Chamber Players, American Chamber Players (Library of Congress), and with Charles Wadsworth and Sharon Robinson. Champion of contemporary music in works by Harbison, Rorem, Kolb, M. Raimi, Frazelle and Ward. Presently teaches at Duke University.
Cover Art: Black Mountains in North Carolina, Courtesy of North Carolina Division of Travel and Tourism
First Sonata for Violin & Piano
Vartan Manoogian, violin · Anne Epperson, piano
Arioso & Tarantelle for Cello & Piano
Mark Ward, cello · Margo Garrett, piano
Second Sonata for Violin & Piano
Nicholas Kitchen, violin · Joseph Kitchen, piano
Anna Wilson, flute · Jonathan Bagg, viola
Fred Raimi, cello · Jane Hawkins, piano
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