Sophia Jani and Teresa Allgaier are releasing Six Pieces for Solo Violin on May 17th. The album showcases Jani’s visionary compositions and Allgaier’s unparalleled performance, resulting in a distinct modern classical offering.
Sophia Jani is a German composer of contemporary classical music who takes a poetically minimalist approach to composition. Her music has recently been performed by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the New Jersey Symphony, the Munich Symphony, Bang on a Can, the Goldmund Quartet, vocal sextet Sjaella, and pianist Eunbi Kim among others. Violinist Teresa Allgaier shifts her focus between classical contemporary music and experimental pop music, whilst always looking for the spell of a comforting yet stirring tone in her sound and music-making. She collaborates with emerging composers and bands, performs with her string ensemble Kontai Ensemble, and writes music for her Chamber Pop duo Fallwander.
The uniqueness of Sophia Jani’s composition is immediately apparent with the intriguing choice of recording seven tracks for an album titled Six Pieces For Solo Violin. Here, Sophia uses the opening track Prelude as a deliberate and separate introduction into a world where rules are bent and expectations challenged. The Prelude serves as a guide to unveil the philosophy behind her music. With each unhurried phrase, the solo violin unfolds a new tone quality, introducing double stops, tremolos, and arpeggios that serve as precursors to the diverse movements within the album: Scordatura, Arpeggio, Triads, Capriccio, Grandezza, and Ricochet. What characterizes the music is its calmness and poise; where each piece focuses on a particular technical aspect. In Six Pieces for Solo Violin, Sophia challenges the notion of simplicity as a parameter, weaving a tapestry of gentle consonance that invites contemplation and honors the violin as an instrument.
On the work, Sophia offers: “What I find interesting about the violin is that it has remained the same for a few hundred years and has not really evolved. The great important violin cycles (Bieber, Bach, Paganini, Isaye, Lang…) were not so much a reaction to the development of the instrument itself – unlike the piano for example – but about what kind of music could be written on it and what the players should be able to do. So the repertoire developed more based on the tastes of a certain period and who wrote for whom than motivated by technical advancement. We asked ourselves what our contribution as two women of the 21st century could be in this context.”
The album’s subtle music is brought to life by violinist Teresa Allgaier’s restrained virtuosity. Her sophisticated and elegant performance perfectly complements Sophia’s vision. Discussing the project Teresa shares, “The work on the Six Pieces reminded me of working on the Bach Sonatas and Partitas. It’s both such delicate, noble music – every note, every phrase wants to be explored and understood in order to be able to let go and approach it with a fresh mind and fantasy. For the recording, I wanted to be in that specific state where I am not standing in the way of the music.”
You can listen to the album here
Photo credit: Tonda Bardehle, courtesy of Practice Media
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