Sonata for solo Violin

I. ADAGIO
II. ALLEGRO
III. MESTO

The story about why she had to compose music for the violin itself is simple and practical. When Maija Einfelde began to work at the Emīls Dārziņš College of Music, the collective decided that the new teacher should organise a small concert of her works. “Turns out that I did not really have anything worthwhile to show. Then, in a few hours, I composed a small little work with doubled notes for Jānis Bulavs. After he performed it, Bulavs asked me – maybe I could write a sonata? I added two more movements to the beginning of the little work. However, the nucleus of the sonata was what is now the third movement. ”In their research of Maija Einfelde’s life and creative work, Baiba Jaunslaviete and her colleagues determined that the 1990s was the only period in the composer’s life when the number of instrumental music works were fewer than choir music works.The premiere of the sonata took place on March 23, 1997 at the Wagner Hall. The annotation provided by the composer states: “A person at the turn of the century. Behind them are lost illusions. Ahead of them are new hopes and loneliness.”In 2021, Maija Einfelde acknowledges that she long ago released this sonata “from her embrace”: “I was not able to develop it as I would have liked, but I do not have the energy to return to it.”The designation Mesto appears in the finale of the sonata – and that gives an indication of the desired mood. Sadness, melancholy (this concept is not a stranger in Maija’s scores). “We are born and then, every day, little by little, we die,” says Maija Einfelde.

Orests Silabriedis /LMIC 129/SKANi "Maija EInfelde: Violin sonatas"/