Njioma Chinyere Grevious, violin
Andrew Goodridge, piano

Blue/s Forms for Solo Violin
Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson
One can almost say that Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson was destined to be a musician at birth. His mother—a busy pianist, organist, and teacher in the Bronx—named him after biracial British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875–1912), whose late-Romantic music was popular in late-Victorian and Edwardian England and much admired by Sir Edward Elgar. The elder Coleridge-Taylor made several acclaimed tours to the United States and was received at the White House by President Theodore Roosevelt. His celebrity made him a cult figure among early 20th-century African-American musicians, who named choral societies for him in major cities across the land.

A precociously gifted pianist and composer, Perkinson lived up to his illustrious name by being accepted into New York’s High School of Music and Arts; there he won the High School Music and Art Choral Competition with his And Behold, as well 
as the City’s coveted LaGuardia Prize for Music. He went on to study at the Manhattan School of Music, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in composition. Summers were spent studying conducting at the renowned Tanglewood Music Center in Massachusetts.

Despite all these degrees and honors, however, Perkinson initially had to struggle to make a career. “The fact was that I did not or could not make headway in the United States,” he recalled, “and when opportunities did come my way and they discovered that I was Black, those opportunities were withdrawn or modified.” The worlds of jazz and film, however, were less prejudiced than the classical music establishment. Fascinated by jazz and the blues tradition, Perkinson became a sought-after composer and arranger for stars like Harry Belafonte, Lou Rawls, and Marvin Gaye. He also composed many film scores, including Sydney Poitier’s A Warm December (1973), and dance scores for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

Classical music was not slighted, either. In 1965, Perkinson co-founded and conducted the Symphony of the New World, the first racially integrated symphony orchestra in America. From his chamber works, we will hear his Blue/s Forms for Solo Violin (1979), which he dedicated to Sanford Allen, the first African-American violinist to play in the New York Philharmonic. Inspired by the solo-violin works of Bach and the virtuoso showpieces of 
Paganini, Blue/s Forms emphasizes the “blue notes” of jazz: the flattened third and seventh degrees of the scale. “Plain Blue/s” slips and slides around these intervals in well-conceived double stops. Played with a mute, “Just Blue/s” explores the melancholy moods linked to traditional blues music with wailing glissandos. Finally, “Jettin’ Blue/s” is an exuberant mashup of Paganini-style virtuosity with American country fiddlin’.

Violin Sonata No. 21 in E minor, K. 304
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
In the fall of 1777, Mozart, impatient with the limited opportunities at Archbishop Colloredo’s court in Salzburg, embarked on a 16-month-long journey to Paris and the musical centers of Germany to find a court position worthy of his talent. Although he was now an adult, his mother traveled with him; his father, Leopold, did not trust his son to keep his mind on business without a chaperone. And, as matters turned out, Leopold had good reason. After an unsuccessful search in Munich, Mozart arrived in Mannheim, seat of the Elector Karl Theodor of the Rhine Palatinate, and, in the words of a contemporary observer, “a paradise of musicians.” Although Mannheim with its superb orchestra would have been an excellent spot for Mozart, the only job the Elector had for the young genius was teaching the clavier to his two illegitimate children.

Yet long after he knew he should move on to Paris, Mozart hung back at Mannheim. The reason: he had fallen madly in love with Aloysia Weber, a lovely and talented soprano and the older sister of the woman he would eventually marry, Constanze. Nevertheless, while paying court to Aloysia, Mozart managed to write quite a lot of music in Mannheim, including the first three and a half of an innovative set of six sonatas for violin and piano, which became known as the Palatine Sonatas. The remainder were composed after he finally moved on to Paris in March 1778, where his job search was also fruitless. Inspired by violin sonatas by Joseph Schuster, court musician at Dresden, they represented a giant advance over the 26 little violin sonatas he’d written as a child under his father’s tutelage. Those early works had followed the convention of the day that made the piano the senior partner of the duo, with the violin reinforcing or echoing the right-hand part. The Palatine Sonatas represented a move toward a new ideal, in which violin and piano became equal partners.

Considered by many as the finest of these works is No. 4 in E minor, the only one in the minor mode. Mozart composed its assertive first movement while still in Mannheim, then added its bittersweet second movement in Paris. The opening Allegro movement is a battle between the serenely lyrical principal theme, introduced by the violin, and the aggressive unison notes, accentuated with staccato accents, that immediately assault it. More drama is added later by hammering repeated notes.

Very different is the remarkable Tempo di menuetto second movement, a poignant rondo also in E minor. Aided by a descending Baroque-style bass pattern and lingering accents on the third beat of the measure, 
the mood here is gently melancholy—suggesting the young composer’s yearning for the girl he left behind. Though the central trio section moves to E major, the mood doesn’t brighten. Here a transformed version of the first movement’s repeated-note motive brings tears, which spill over in the fragmented, anguished coda that returns to E minor.

Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, 
Op. 47, Kreutzer
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
In April 1803, Ludwig van Beethoven was introduced to a brilliant 24-year-old violinist, newly arrived in Vienna, by the composer’s patron Prince Karl Lichnowsky: George Polgreen Bridgetower. Bridgetower was an extroverted and exotic personality of mixed racial origins (his father was from the West Indies, his mother European). And 
he was a fiery virtuoso—a protégé of the Franco-Italian master violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti, who had developed a new, more powerful French school of violin playing that utilized the revolutionary “Viotti” bow.

Beethoven was captivated by Bridgetower as both a musician and a man. The two frequented taverns together, and soon Bridgetower convinced the composer to write a violin sonata for them to perform together. However, their proposed concert date was looming fast. Fortunately, Beethoven had an orphan finale for a violin sonata he had composed in 1802, but then had replaced, deciding it was not a good match for that work. Its wildly virtuosic style would be ideal for Bridgetower if he could only write two other movements quickly enough to go with it. And so at breakneck speed, he composed the new movements and added them to his existing finale to make this extraordinary work that by rights should be called the Bridgetower Sonata but instead is known today as the Kreutzer Sonata. It was a sensational success for both musicians at its Vienna debut on May 24, 1803. However, a subsequent quarrel with Bridgewater (reportedly over a woman both were interested in) caused Beethoven to change the dedication to another violinist, the Frenchman Rodolphe Kreutzer, who, ironically, disliked the piece and never played it.

Despite the speed of its composition, the Kreutzer is one of the most impressive and innovative works Beethoven created for any instrument. He described it as written more in the virtuosic style of a concerto than a traditional sonata, and it vastly expanded the demands placed on the violinist to match those Beethoven had already achieved for his own instrument, the piano. In his superb biography of the composer, Jan Swafford calls it “an exercise in sustained intensity”: a work of high drama and bold expressiveness that corresponded to such piano sonatas as the Appassionata and Waldstein Beethoven was writing about this time. Leo Tolstoy used it as inspiration for one of his greatest short stories, “The Kreutzer Sonata,” about music’s ability to arouse dangerous erotic passions.

Though the first movement is in a turbulent, fast-tempo A minor, it opens with a slow, pensive introduction in A major. This arresting opening features the violinist playing big multi-stopped chords, as full-bodied as the pianist’s. A little sighing motive swinging up by a half step becomes increasingly prominent and eventually culminates in the violin rising to a dissonant F-natural.

That idea then launches the virile principal theme of the Presto sonata form, the violin completing it with slashing chords. The fiery momentum cools briefly for a lyrically sustained second theme. And Beethoven creates yet a third theme, introduced 
by the piano: a dashing ascending melody in gypsy style, with strong, thwacking accents plucked by the violinist.

Beethoven then conjures up an adventurous development section from these themes, which wanders all over the harmonic universe while constantly challenging both players to more ambitious feats. A special moment in the movement’s concluding dash is an interruption by a slow, meditative passage musing on the usually bold principal theme.

The second movement, a set of four variations on a gentle song-like theme, gives the two perspiring players a chance to recover before the exertions of the finale. The dissonant note of F that appeared at the sonata’s beginning now finds its goal as the movement’s F-major home key. Particularly fine are the third variation—a mysterious and moody treatment in F minor—and the ethereal and fantastic fourth, overflowing with trills. The movement culminates in an exquisite reverie of a coda.

In A major, the finale is a white-hot Presto in the whirlwind rhythm of a Neapolitan tarantella dance. The exuberantly playful theme generates a battle of virtuosity between the two players, which—as in the first movement—is briefly and cleverly slowed by a beautiful, unexpected passage of reminiscence.

—Janet E. Bedell © 2024

Janet E. Bedell is a program annotator and feature writer who writes for Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Caramoor Festival of the Arts, and other musical organizations.