Sonata for Violin and Piano

Boris Papandopulo (1906 – 1991) is one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Papandopulo also worked as music writer, journalist, reviewer, pianist and piano accompanist; however, he achieved the peaks of his career in music as a composer. His composing oeuvre is imposing – Papandopulo composed almost 500 opuses: with great success he created instrumental (orchestral, concertante, chamber and solo), vocal and instrumental (for solo voice and choir), music-stage and film music. In all these kinds and genres he left a string of anthology-piece compositions of great artistic value. Papandopulo composed the four-movement Sonata for violin and piano in 1988 at the suggestion of violinist Goran Končar and pianist Ida Gamulin. Its four movements are highly contrasting in characters and stylistic features. The first movement is dramatic and makes great technical demands on the interpreters, particularly the violinist. The second movement, with its irregular (2+2+3) rhythms reveals its inspiration in (North) Macedonian traditional music. The principal theme of the third movement is extremely expressive and from time to time we will feel its melodic interval jumps and sudden changes of the register of violin sounds almost physically, as headlong tumbles into a tonal abyss. The fourth and last movement is an expanded arrangement of Papandopulo’s own version of the folk song Grana od bora pala kraj mora – A pine bough fell by the sea – for voice and piano of 1950.