Clarissa Bevilacqua, violin
With this concert program, I take the audience along with me through a brief history of the instrument’s virtuosity, summarized with four pairs of classical and contemporary compositions.
The program begins with Thomas’s Dream Catcher and Marsalis’s lively Sidestep Reel from Fiddle Dance Suite, offering an interesting comparison between two contemporary American composers with similar backgrounds but opposite styles.
We then go back to the origins of the violin’s polyphony with Bach’s iconic Preludio from the third partita. Ysaÿe’s Sonata no. 2 provides a bridge into the twentieth century, where we stay to listen to Kreisler’s Recitativo and Scherzo-Caprice and Hindemith’s Sonata for Solo Violin - two virtuosos in their own right with two different ways of innovating violin technique.
We then reach the apotheosis of technical difficulty and harmonic complexity with Bartók’s Tempo di Ciaccona. The program concludes with Bach’s monumental Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, a masterpiece that encapsulates the emotional and technical pinnacle of solo violin performance.
A. R. Thomas | Dream Catcher
W. Marsalis | I. Sidestep Reel from: Fiddle Dance Suite
J.S. Bach | I. Preludio from: Partita No. 3 in E Major BWV 1006
E. Ysaÿe | Sonata in A Minor Op. 27 No. 2 "Jacques Thibaud"
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F. Kreisler | Recitativo and Scherzo, Op. 6
P. Hindemith | Sonata for Solo Violin, Op. 31 No. 2
B. Bartók | I. Tempo di Ciaccona from: Sonata for Solo Violin Sz 117
J.S. Bach | V. Chaconne from: Partita No. 2 in D Minor BWV 1004
