Suite No.2 for solo violin (1927)

Lebhaft

Fliessend

Stürmisch

Jazz-Tempo, sehr robust

As Eugène Ysaÿe once remarked, “Bach’s genius intimidates anyone tempted do something in the same line… How,” he he went on to ask, “do you escape an influence so dominant that, fatally, if you want to write for solo violin, you’ll be composing some kind of pastiche?” His six masterly Sonatas of 1923 clearly indicate indicate that he at least found a way out of the problem. As for Karl Amadeus Hartmann, a 22-year-old student at the Akademie der Tonkunst in Munich in 1927, he doesn’t seem to have been intimidated in the least. Certainly, there are echoes of Bach in the two solo sonatas and two solo suites he wrote at that time. But if there is any element of “pastiche” in Suite No.2 it is the result of an evidently keen interest in the The Soldier’s Tale and the new violin sound Stravinsky had created to characterise the Soldier’s unschooled but resourceful fiddle-playing.

The Stravinsky influence is clearest in the last movement. Although the Soldier’s double-stopped fiddle sound can be heard from time in the opening Lebhaft (lively), Hartmann is more inclined here to allude to the imitative counterpoint, real or simulated, in the fugal movements of the Bach sonatas. The Fliessend (flowing) slow movement, a contemplation on a modal melody which comes to a thoughtful pause half-way through, aligns itself with neither Bach nor Stravinsky. The same applies to the brilliant display of anger in the Stürmisch (stormy) scherzo. The Jazz-Tempo finale, on the other hand, clearly recalls the Three Dances episode, not least Ragtime, in The Soldier’s Tale.