Roger Zahab - Sonata for Winter

Sonata for Winter
Date Completed:	December 10, 1979
Duration:	about 6 and a half minutes
Instrumentation:	violin and 'cello
First Performance:	by Roger Zahab, violin and Betsy Highland, 'cello on a Mostly From the Last Decade concert, April 2, 1980 in the Recital Hall of the Fine Arts Center, State University of New York at Stony Brook
Comments:	for Betsy Highland
Program Notes:	Sonata for Winter, completed December 10, 1979, was written for Betsy Highland, a gifted cellist and fellow graduate student at SUNY Stony Brook - I think she asked for a duo we could play together. This is perhaps the first work in which I was able to keep an ear on matters large and small, and I took particular care to consciously write in audible phrases (which may have been daring for the time: I seem to recall that clearly audible phrases - and also octaves and triadic sonorities creating any sort of harmonic gravitational pull - were frowned upon as "not advanced". But then, composers considered me a violinist and violinists considered me a composer - perhaps things haven't changed all that much.) As with most works from my turbulent youth, there is a hidden quote from a Romantic era composer. It was premiered by us on April 2, 1980 on a Mostly From the Last Decade concert in Staller Arts Center, Stony Brook, New York. rz Pittsburgh premiere by Lilit Hartunian and David Russell, October 5, 2019