| Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's | 2 movemnts |
|---|---|
| Composition Year | 1981 |
| Genre Categories | Meditations; Capriccios; For viola, piano; |
Complete Score
*#975720 - 3.65MB, 23 pp. - (-) - !N/!N/!N - 9×⇩ - Elainefine
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Elainefine (2025/6/13)
|  |
| Work Title | Viola Sonata #2 |
|---|---|
| Alternative. Title | |
| Composer | Fine, Marshall |
| Opus/Catalogue NumberOp./Cat. No. | Opus 23 |
| Internal Reference NumberInternal Ref. No. | IMF 48 |
| Movements/SectionsMov'ts/Sec's | 2 movemnts |
| Year/Date of CompositionY/D of Comp. | 1981 |
| Dedication | Michelle Walker |
| Composer Time PeriodComp. Period | Modern |
| Piece Style | Modern |
| Instrumentation | Viola and Piano |
Program Notes by the composer: SONATA no. 2, op. 23 By 1981 Fine had settled in Memphis, the only place where he could find a worthwhile living, involving a part-time orchestra position and a doctoral assistantship; and he had met his future wife, Michelle Walker. Even so, he still found life hard. His character was tolerated little better than it had been at Michigan; as musical standards were lower, people were the more intimidated or antagonized. As usual, he retreated into composition: the Sonata no. 2, written in the summer of 1981 as a declaration of love for his fiancée in a two-movement form (making it, at 10 or so minutes, the shortest and most compressed for the sonatas). Fine himself performed it several times in Memphis, including the 1982 Beethoven Club competition which he did not win (though the sonata was highly acclaimed). His father also took it up, performing it in 1988 and 1991.
The two movements of the sonata are a Meditation and a Capriccio. The first, characterized as “a moody paradox of spiri-tual calm and intensity”, is worked out with great drama across a three-part song form, evolving from its elements a tone-row of great importance in the sonata which is first stated in full just before its climax. The second movement is a rondo with a rocketing main theme and a somewhat Sibelian second theme underlain by a Stravinskian basso ostinato. The lyrical middle section has figurations said to derive from a friend’s flamenco guitar playing. This is an incredibly diverse palette of influences to be integrated into one cyclic form--yet Fine does this admirably. The most startling masterstroke of this process is in the last reprise of the rondo theme: elements of both the main and secondary themes are combined in-to one fugue subject, which is then developed to its fullest extent, including stretto and inversion. Meanwhile the subsidiary material remains as episodes, in which are combined elements of the first movement--including the tone-row, which dominates the coda. The result is a truly organic cyclic process which Fine came to cherish as a model for his later uses, notably the Tango in Time of War op. 100.
