Byron Adams

Sonata

I began to compose my Sonata for Viola and Piano (2010-11) at a time of difficult personal circumstances. First, I had to have a series of delicate operations on my eyes. Happily, the surgeries were successful and my eyesight was eventually restored. But, for months after the first operation, I was unable to read. During this period, I repeatedly listened to Beethoven's string quartets. Beethoven's music gave me courage and hope throughout my recuperation. Second, just as my eyesight had begun to return and I had tentatively begun to compose again, I learned of the tragic death of a kind and gentle friend. I resolved to create a musical monument to his memory: this Sonata for viola and piano.

I cast my Viola Sonata in four movements, deriving the thematic material of the entire sonata from the opening measures. The turbulent first movement is a variant of sonata form in which a new theme, a sinister trumpet-call that first appears in the piano, heralds the beginning of the development section. The second movement is a lilting siciliana. The third movement is a somber funeral procession above which the viola sings a lament. In the finale, a sonata rondo in which themes from previous movements are varied upon return, the music hurtles forward inexorably towards a brusque, dismissive final
Byron Adams, autumn, 2015, Los Angeles, USA