released November 15, 2010

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Viola: Carole Mukogawa
Recorded by: Noel Gould at Aquarian Studios
Cover Painting by: Andrea Whitt

Two Violas by Bernard Camurat are heard on this recording:
Bacewicz, Strawinsky, Wallraff; 1990, Los Angeles
The Bach Suite; 1995, Paris
www.camurat-luthier.com


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Track 1
Title: Sonata No. 2
Composer: Grazyna Bacewicz, born: Lodz 1913; died: Warsaw, 1969
(Viola transcription by Stefan Kamasa)

Already a musical prodigy, she was composing by the age of twelve. At nineteen she received a scholarship to study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, returning the following year for violin study with Carl Flesch as well. Returning to her native Poland she spent the WWII years in Warsaw. It was during this period she composed the Sonata No. 2 for Solo Violin. Through her association with the Warsaw Piano Quartet she met the violist Stephen Kamasa. He commissioned what was to be her final composition, the 1968 Viola Concerto, and transcribed this Sonata No. 2 for Solo Viola.

In addition to concertizing as both a violinist and a pianist, she was a prolific composer, wrote four novels, a television play, short stories and essays. She was married and had one daughter.

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Track 2
Title: Journey
Composer: Dean Wallraff
Formerly on the faculty of the MIT Experimental Music Studio, the compositions of Dean Wallraff cross many genres, and he is equally at home with acoustic as well as electronic instruments. Journey, commissioned by choreographer Benita Bike for her ensemble DanceArt Company, was performed as a duet for dancer and viola.
For more information on Dean Wallraff see www.arsnova.org/deanraff
For more information on DanceArt Company visit www.DanceArt.org & www.DanceArt.org

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Track 3
Title: Elégie
Composer: Igor Strawinsky

At the request of the violist Germaine Prévost, the Elégie was written in 1944 for the memorial for Alphonse Onnou, first violin and founder of the Quator Pro Arte.
It bears this dedication:

composée à l’intention de Germaine Prévost,
pour être jouée à la memoire de Alphonse Innou, fondateur du Quartor Pro Arte

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Tracks 4 – 9
Title: Suite in C Major
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

With no original manuscript yet found in Bach’s own handwriting, the Suites have inspired much speculation. The one seeming agreement is that they were pivotal in the development of the violoncello. Today, they are included in the standard repertory of many other instruments as well, and certainly in that of the viola.
These works were most likely composed between 1717-1723. At this time Bach was in the employ of Prince Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen. In Köthen, his duties were in the court rather than church, and the organ there was insignificant in comparison with previous posts. The Prince himself was an amateur musician and played with the court orchestra. Secular use of instruments was increasing, and instruments themselves were evolving in response. Bach began to experiment with instrumentation and utilize instruments in new roles. These are the years that brought us the famous Brandenburg Concertos, the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, and the first volumes of The Well-tempered Clavier.
In 1720 Bach’s first wife died. In December of 1721 he remarried, to Anna Magdalena Wilcken. She was the daughter of a court trumpet player and a musician herself. It is in her hand that the “original” version is written. The title page is inscribed:

Suites à Violoncello Solo
senza
Basso
composées
par
J. S. Bach.
Maitre de Chapelle.

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