- Home
- Listen
- News
- Biography
- Works
- Orchestral
- Symphony No.1
- The Burning of the Leaves (version for Baritone and Orchestra)
- 2011 Concertante Variations (Presteigne Concerto) for Wind Quintet, Timpani and Strings
- Angry Lament
- Sixteen Sunrises
- Symphony No.5
- Symphony No.2
- Sea-Change
- The Flight of Icarus
- Channel Firing
- Partita
- Symphony No.3
- The Spindle of Necessity
- Piano Concerto
- Tenebrae
- Symphony No. 5
- In Sea-Cold Lyonesse
- Binyon Songs (version for Baritone and Orchestra)
- Forbidding Mourning
- The Art of Beginning
- Ensemble
- Chamber
- Instrumental
- Choral
- Programme notes
- Black Castles
- The Flight of Icarus
- Agamemnon’s Tomb
- Aurora
- The Borders of Sleep – Nine Poems by Edward Thomas
- Channel Firing
- Eden
- Orion
- The Phagotus of Afranio
- Piano Sonata
- Sonata for Violin and Piano
- A Starlit Dome
- String Quartet No.2
- String Quartet No.3
- String Quartet No.4
- Symphony No.3
- Tenebrae
- String Quartet No.2
- Orchestral programme notes
- Instrumental programme notes
- Chamber programme notes
- Brass programme notes
- Solo vocal programme notes
- Choral programme notes
- Spindle of Necessity
- Gaia Symphony
- Tsunami
- Men of Stone – Symphonic Suite for Brass Band
- Wildfire
- Sea-Change
- Piano Concerto
- Valedictions
- Snowbound
- Insomnia
- John Pickard: Chamber Music CD
- Binyon Songs
- Mass in Troubled Times Programme Note
- Brass
- Solo vocal
- Transcriptions
- Orchestral
- Performances
- Recordings
- Reviews
- Review of Gaia Symphony
- The Flight of Icarus
- Reviews of Norrköping Symphony Orchestra CD of The Flight of Icarus, The Spindle of Necessity and Channel Firing
- The Burning of the Leaves
- BIS Record CD of Piano Concerto, Sea-Change & Tenebrae – International Record Review
- BBC Music Magazine – Piano Concerto, Sea-Change and Tenebrae
- Tenebrae reviewed on MusicWeb International.com
- BIS Records CD of Piano Concerto Sea Change Tenebrae Classica
- Guardian review String Quartets Nos 1 and 5
- Classical Lost and Found review string quartets nos 1 and 5
- International Record Review String Quartets Nos 1 and 5
- Toccata New Chamber Music, Volume 2.
- BBC Review Toccata Classics Chamber Music Volume Two
- Musical Opinion – an overview of The Symphonies of John Pickard
- In concert – Bristol University SO / John Pickard – The Vision of Cleopatra
- Reviews of String Quartet No.4
- Chamber Music and Tenebrae reviewed in German
- String Quartet No.5 – Brodowski Quartet at Purcell Room
- Quartets 2 -4
- Athene-Minerva CD of Piano music
- Negative reviews of The Flight of Icarus
- Orion and The Borders of Sleep
- Agamemnon’s Tomb
- Contact
Sonata for Violin and Piano
This Sonata was composed between June and August 2004. It was commissioned by the Carr-Gregory trust and is dedicated to Linda and Russ Carr and to Gina McCormack.
The work has two contrasting movements and plays for around eighteen minutes. The first movement divides into two distinct sections: a turbulent fast section and a short, but extremely fast scherzo which is based on the same material as the previous section.
The second movement is slow and lyrical and is a further transformation of music heard earlier. It begins and ends calmly and simply, rising to an impassioned climax in the middle.
Listeners interested in the work’s technical construction may like to know that the entire piece explores the tension created by the interplay of two mutually exclusive harmonic systems: one built on a scale of alternating tones and semitones, the other built on an interlocking cycle of perfect fifths. The use of fifths, particularly those to which the violin is tuned, inevitably brings to mind Berg’s famous use of the open violin strings in his Violin Concerto. While gratefully acknowledging the influence of that masterpiece, I hope that my own work explores some alternative implications of that distinctive sonority.
© John Pickard 2004