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From Journal of the American Viola Society Reviewer: Carlos Maria Solare Ivan Sokolov, a Moscow-born and trained pianist-composer, has over the past five years written a triptych of piano-accompanied sonatas for string instruments. This CD includes the violin and viola ones, respectively from 2005 and 2006. Interestingly, all three works are based on a similar melodic cell, with which the first movement begins. Another unifying factor, featuring in several movements, seems to be a kind of stylized bird-song. The viola sonata, in a sonorous C minor, is in one multi-sectional but continuous movement of twelve minutes' duration. The violin sonata is classically divided into four movements and is twice as long. Written in E minor, a blazing coda in the major mode prompted the composer to call it "Sunlight" Sonata. Both works show Sokolov's credentials as a latter-day Rachmaninov, relishing succulent piano textures, while treating the respective string instrument idiomatically. Sokolov's partnership with Karen Bentley Pollick is closely-knit, and she -- a violinist -- seems to feel quite at home on the larger instrument as well. (Indeed, the dark tone of her Vuillaume violin seems to suggest an affinity!) The CD is completed by an appropriately exotic-sounding Tango Orientale for viola and piano by Ole Saxe, and Lullabies by Moravian composer, Jan Vicar. The latter keeps the violin and the piano in different keys (A flat and D respectively), which together with a stylized use of the Lydian mode, evokes elements of Moravian folkloric music. The whole CD, which is very attractively recorded and presented, demonstrates that it is quite possible to write good tunes in the 21st Century.
On Record Tired of the same old warhorses rehashed year after year? Amberwood is a richly satisfying collection that offers an invigorating foursome of contemporary works that show just how original a string player can get when committed to bringing great new music to the world. The gifted violinist and violist Karen Bentley Pollick commissioned the Sonata for Viola and Piano last year from pianist and composer Ivan Sokolov (b. 1960), a prominent Russian player and educator. The result is a 12 ˝ minute recording of a wonderfully hypnotic music that makes good use of the viola's dark voice, especially in the nocturne. The piece is part of a triad of works-the others are a 2002 cello and a 2005 violin sonata- that share a similar opening motif. This new Viola Sonata is fashioned in four movements, like a symphony cycle. The other works included here are the spry Tango Orientale for Viola and Piano (2001) by Swedish composer Ole Saxe (b. 1952); the meditative Uspávanky (Lullabies) for Violin and Piano (2006) by Czech composer Jan Vičar (what the composer describes as "a lyrical parallel to the Homage to Fiddlers for Violin and Cello," which he penned during his tenure at Birmingham-Southern College); and the wistful Solnechnaya (Sunlight) Sonata for Violin and Piano (2005) by Sokolov. Pollick, who has performed with everyone from the Dave Matthews Band to the New York Philharmonic, resides in Birmingham, Alabama. At press time, she had planned to present the first all-Sokolov concert in Birmingham and Baton Rouge, joining forces with Louisiana State University cello professor Dennis Parker to perform Sokolov's early Piano Trio, followed by a cycle of his violin, viola, and cello sonatas. |
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