“While we know Harrison for his danceable fusions of Western and Eastern musics, the Sonata finds the composer enthralled with Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method. Not content to merely mimic, Harrison developed a technique of serial manipulation of intervals he termed ‘interval controls’ that he first fully realized in this piece.”
Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin is a seven-minute avant-garde classical piece composed in 1936 by Lou Harrison, an artist who first studied under Henry Cowell at San Francisco State University and later went on to teach music himself at Mills College, San Jose State University, and beyond. Performed by Kate Stenberg, recorded by Zach Miley at Oakland’s 25th Street Recording Studio, and released by Other Minds Records, this new rendition of old music stirs, stretches, bends, and collapses the sonic possibilities of a single violin, all while maintaining a folk dance quality.
