JAVS Summer 2000

25

NIKOLAI ROSLAVETS AND HIS VIOLA SONATAS

The dominant ninth chord then actually resolves to a g minor triad in the viola and upper piano parts. Thus, a bitonal juxtaposition results when a tonal center of g is easily perceived above a reminiscence of C in the lower register. Though unusual, such bitonal articulation was foreshadowed even at the opening of the com position. Referring back to example three, we can hear that the melody of theme I played by the viola conforms to the aeolian or natural minor mode on g, while at the same time it is being sup ported by a piano accompaniment that establishes a chordal reference point of C. Roslavets' work list indicates that this Sonata was performed at some point by Vadim Vasilevich Borisovsky, to whom the work is dedicated. The composer's Second Sonata for Viola and Piano is likewise dedicated to Borisovsky. Given its archival dating (from the 1930s), the piece was written when Roslavets was forced to abandon his method of composing with synthetic chords. Compositions dating from this later, more conservative period are commonly considered to be oflesser value than the composer's earlier, modernist works. The Second Viola Sonata, how ever, challenges this point of view. Although its large-scale formal articulations are undeniably conservative, the sonata's highly chromatic harmonic content remains true to Roslavets' individ ual style. Indeed, there are compositional traits in this work that link it to its predecessor despite differences that reflect concession to conservative demands. The first and most obvious difference is that this piece is not a single-movement work. It con sists of three movements designated Allegro commodo, Assai moderato, and Allegro con spirito. Two allegro movements frame a traditional fast-slow-fast arrangement. An equally glaring differ ence is the use of key signatures: one flat in the outer movements denotes a tonal center of F major; two flats in the second movement designate a move to the subdominant, B-flat major. However, apart from beginning and ending points, these tonalities are obscured by the compo sition's chromatic pitch-structural context. Example eight reproduces the opening few measures of the first movement.

Example 8.

Allegro commodo

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