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Book Michael Long for a groupmuse

Sonatas of Resilience


Details

Michael Long full profile / Violin and Piano / 2 musicians

Other players: Osvaldo de Leon Davila


Full program notes

Sonata No. 9 “Kreutzer” - L.v.Beethoven
Sonata for Violin and Piano - Francis Poulenc

Both composers on this program faced tragedies of very different kinds by creating two of the greatest pieces written for violin and piano.

Beethoven had only just written his “Heiligenstadt Testament,” a deeply vulnerable letter to his brother in which he grapples with his worsening deafness and social isolation. In the letter he determines to give the world all he can despite these devastating setbacks. One of the very next pieces he wrote was this luminous, optimistic Kreutzer sonata.

Francis Poulenc, an out gay French composer, was inspired to write his violin sonata by the murder of gay Spanish poet Gabriel Garcia Lorca by the fascists. Though the piece musically references this violent event, it is (like the Beethoven) ultimately a work of defiance and triumph of the human spirit, ending both enigmatically and with hope.


Historical context

As mentioned in the program notes, this program addresses details of Beethoven’s biography including what social life was like for deaf people, 20th century European fascism, and mid-20th century gay artists. Musically, you’ll hear a piece in the transition from the Clasdical to Romantic era and a 20th century piece from one of the most important composers of the French group “Les Six.”


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