JAVS Summer 2000

17

NIKOLAI ROSLAVETS AND HIS VIOLA SONATAS

upon a "synthetic chord." 7 Given Skriabin's popularity in Russia and Roslavets' interest in con temporary musical developments, it is very unlikely that Sabaneev's publications or the subse quent debates between 1913 and 1916 about Skriabin's chord construction would have com pletely escaped Roslavets' notice. Although Roslavets defended his independence and claimed not to be influenced by Skriabin, his synthetic chord technique has much in common with Skriabin's late harmonic practice. THE SONATAS FOR VIOLA AND PIANO Roslavets' archive at the Russian Central Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) includes a hand-written document by the composer listing his musical compositions. 8 The document has an archivally determined date of the 1940s. Roslavets lists only one Sonata for viola and piano, dated 1926. Yet among his manuscripts is a score for a Sonata No. 2 for viola and piano archival ly determined to have been written in the 1930s. Neither of these two works were published dur ing the composer's lifetime. Both were published for the first time by Schott in 1993 as the First and Second Sonatas for Viola and Piano. However, in addition to these two complete works for this medium, there exists an earlier incomplete manuscript titled by Roslavets "Ire Sonate pour Alto et Piano," which he began on Aprill3, 1925, but apparently abandoned. 9 In 1989-90, the Russian composer Aleksandr Raskatov provided a completion for the manuscript and the Roslavets-Raskatov score was later recorded by Yuri Bashmet. 10 Although the completed work cannot be viewed as an authentic viola sonata by Roslavets, the surviving manuscript does shed light on the composer's compositional practice. The manuscript lays out the main material for a single-movement work in sonata form enti tled Allegro con moto. It consists of first and second themes, the beginning of a transition between them, and a development section that is focused primarily on the motivic material of theme I. The opening measures of the Sonata's first theme disclose the synthetic chord source for the piece. As shown in the chordal reduction beneath the first six measures reproduced in exam ple one, the piano accompaniment within the first two-and-a-half measures essentially arpeg giates between members of a harmony comprised of a major third, diminished fifth, minor sev enth, minor ninth, and minor thirteenth above the fundamental pitch-class or root, A.

Example 1.

Allegro con moto

3

---

3 .. .fl-•

:::::-

...__

.......

T•

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--==

p-=:::::

tr~

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.=-----!:~

I

:

I sl J

5.l

p

~

T

r--

:

~ #=i-·

11+ :::::; ...

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~ordal reduction

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