Bartók
Malov

Sergey Malov, violin

B. Bartók (1881-1945)

Sonata per Solo Violin in G minor, SZ 117

25’ | Ticket 8 €

Inside the Rotonda di San Lorenzo, Sergey Malov gives voice to the art of Béla Bartók in his Sonata for Solo Violin in G minor. Structured in four movements, the work unfolds as a complex sonic layering in which the rigor of Baroque writing intertwines with elements drawn from Hungarian folk traditions, which the composer studied during his ethnomusicological research.

Composed in 1944 at the request of violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the Sonata explicitly engages with the model of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, an essential reference for the solo violin repertoire. Bartók reworks their forms and principles, evoking, for instance, the Chaconne, but pushing the language toward a more abrasive polyphony and a virtuosic writing that required Menuhin himself to seek new technical solutions.

Throughout the work, and particularly in the final movement, Bartók further expands the sonic horizon through the use of microtonality, inspired by the inflections of traditional Eastern European song. The result is a composition that, while rooted in tradition, transcends its boundaries, offering an original synthesis of past and modernity and standing as one of the peaks of twentieth-century violin repertoire.

Text by Martina Sangermano