Analysis of Sonata for Violin and Piano, Opus 45

Description:

Lecture at the French Institute at Athens on 1 July 1981 at the first performance of Sonata for Violin and Piano Op. 45.

Yorgos Sicilianos began his lecture by acknowledging the honour of discussing his work in the welcoming environment of the French Institute. He explained his initial reluctance, grounded in his belief that a work of art speaks for itself and requires no interpretation. However, he recognised the value of providing insights into the stimuli and challenges that shaped his Sonata for Violin and Piano, Opus 45, completed in March 1981.

Sicilianos noted that the Sonata traverses various musical idioms and cultures, linking its four movements in pairs: the first (Chaconne) with the last (Nijinsky) and the second (Scherzo) with the third (Pantoum). He highlighted the Chaconne for solo violin as a prelude inspired by Bach’s work in D minor, aiming to maintain the fluid polyphonic writing and metric freedom characteristic of the great German cantor.

The Scherzo draws from Sicilianos’ previous song cycle for voice and piano, based on modern Greek poetry, specifically Giannis Ritsos’ poem “At the Edge of the Harbour.” The music incorporates themes of an eerie bird cry and mourning, aligning with the poem’s imagery.

The third movement, Pantoum, is based on a poetic form from Malaysian folklore, revived in Western literature by poets like Baudelaire. Sicilianos employed a twelve-syllable structure, with lines repeating every three stanzas, creating a musical form mirroring the poem’s cyclical nature. He carefully aligned his musical phrases with the poem’s structure, producing a work that sings beyond words, enriched by the traditional sounds of a Javanese gamelan.

The final movement, Nijinsky, inspired by George Seferis’ prose, portrays the famed dancer as a symbol of the ideal artist. Sicilianos interpreted the prose into music, depicting Nijinsky’s movements and emotional states through a series of musical motifs, resonating with Seferis’ aesthetic principles of pity, fear, and catharsis. The recurring elements in the prose, such as the birds and the organ grinder’s monotonous note, found their musical parallels in the Sonata.

Sicilianos concluded by reflecting on how revisiting these traditional forms, which he had previously abandoned, represented a journey beyond his creative boundaries. He urged the audience to listen to the Sonata itself, letting the music convey its narrative and emotional depth.