Etudes I – III for solo violin

Widmann’s Etudes for solo violin are composed without key or time
signature, like fleeting mutterings against a backdrop of silence. Each one
glides thematically into the next, throwing into question the very boundaries
of the composition and our divisions of time.

The first Etude was composed in 1995
while Widmann studied clarinet at the Julliard School of Music in New York and
is dedicated to Peter Sheppard. They worked on it together by fax and phone,
sending signals down wires until the piece was ready. It opens with a dynamic
lattice of harmonic whispers and insinuations, leading into a siren-like drone
passage based on micro-tonal fluctuations, caused by de-tuning and re-tuning
the A and D strings. Bursts of menacing glissando, tremolo and harsh pizzicato
attacks populate the following bars, weaving a tapestry of suspense. The Etude
ends with a drone harmonized by the violinist humming a long frail note. As Jörg has described it in a letter
to Peter; This music is
silence with some ‘events’ in it, very intense, calm, lonely, harsh and brutal
at the same time: ‘Standing vertically on the motion of human hearts’.

The second Etude
was composed in 2001 and dedicated to Isabelle Faust. It begins where the first
ends, opening with a plaintive theme punctuated by the violinists voice. The
playing slowly gathers momentum, racing towards increasing complexity and
violence. The disembodied voice occasionally returns, taking the listener by
surprise, adding a touch of humanity to the latices of fierce and alienating
phrases.

The third Etude was composed in 2002,
inspired by Jörg’s sister Caroline Widmann rehearsing Eugène Ysaÿe’s Solo
Violin Sonatas, and is dedicated to her. The seams between the second and the
third are almost inaudible, the muted rustling tremolo of the second pausing
for no more than a breath before gaining momentum at the start of the third.
The opening direction reads Frantic
agitation, as fast as possibleand that is exactly what we get. A slowly
ascending scurry of notes increases in clarity, the phrases expanding alongside
the distances between the notes, until the lowest and highest pitches of the
violin are tied together in breathtaking phrases; the extremities of the
instrument touched almost simultaneously. The muted and murky depths of the
instrument are forever present and contrasted with the crystalline and piercing
clarity of the highest notes. The Etude dwindles into tentative pizzicato,
fading gradually and introspectively into silence.