Jody Rockmaker

Solo Viola

Composer's Note:

Composing informs my teaching and teaching informs my composing. I have taught a course on canons and fugues for many years. I always include the wonderful fugues for solo violin by Bach, Schnittke, and Bartok as examples. I was compiling my materials in preparation for the class when I began to wonder: can you compose a canon for a solo instrument? It’s a challenge, to be sure, but these three works are the result.

Please note that the third movement is a “crab” or retrograde canon. When such a work is performed by two players, one will start at the beginning and play through the piece in the usual manner while the other would start at the end and read backwards. Obviously, one player would have quite a problem performing the piece this way, so a realization with both voices on the same staff is provided for convenience.