Sonata da Chiesa
For viola and pianoCommentary
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Commentary
The Sonata da Chiesa was composed at the end of 1986, at the request of the Canarian violist Humberto Orán, to whom it is dedicated together with his wife, the pianist Chiky Martín.
Violist Humberto Orán
The title of the work is sufficiently revealing of the formal recreation that is proposed in it: a succession of the four characteristic movements that, in the slow-fast-slow-fast order, made up the baroque sonatas with the same name, of which the Italian Arcangelo Corelli was the most representative composer. This succession of tempi guarantees, on the other hand, sufficient contrast between the different movements, which makes this form, a priori, especially attractive.
In this Sonata da Chiesa, a series of technical procedures are put into play that allow, together with the maximum constructive rigor, considerable expressiveness. In this sense, the progressive formation of a melody that grows note by note can be highlighted, in the slow movements, covering the entire extension of the viola in the first, and only the low register (4th string, exclusively) in the third, always within a character that oscillates between the lyrical and the dramatic.
The fast movements (second and fourth), meanwhile, have in both cases a scherzante character, which further accentuates the contrast provided by the change in tempo. The second movement has a binary form, and in its elaboration a very rigorous constructive principle is followed from a false twelve-tone series and its different inversions, retrogradations and inversions, from which a note, the C, is always systematically suppressed. with which, however, both sections end.
Finally, the fourth movement has a classic rondo-sonata form, with the scherzante character prevailing throughout, and serving as a brilliant conclusion to the Sonata.
The Sonata da Chiesa was premiered in Zaragoza by Humberto Orán and Chiky Martín on November 1987, and one of its movements, the second, served later as the basis for the second movement of the Concerto for violin and orchestra, composed in 1987.
First page of the Sonata da Chiesa