By Saad Haddad

Violin Sonata is written in three movements and dedicated to the violinist William Shaub, whom I have known for over a decade, dating back to our student days at Juilliard. In addition to being an extraordinary musician, Will and I share a strand of Arabic ancestry, and for many years we had talked about creating a work together that could meaningfully explore that part of our heritage. The occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Knoxville Symphony felt like the right moment to finally bring that idea to life.

The first movement, Tabayyun (contrasts in Arabic), is built around opposition and dialogue. Much of the musical tension arises from the interaction between the Arabic maqam system, with its microtonally inflected pitches, and the more familiar harmonic tendencies of Western classical music. The piano often inhabits a harmonically “Western" sound world, while the violin foregrounds the expressive inflections of maqam. At times these two worlds collide, at times they coexist uneasily, and at moments they briefly align, forming fleeting instances of unity within contrast.

The second movement, Passacaglia, is a meditation on endurance. Traditionally, a passacaglia is built on a repeating ground bass, often in the lowest voice. Here, that role is reversed: the violin carries the repeating material in its highest register, as high as the instrument can sustain. The violin’s line is restricted almost entirely to two intervals - the neutral third and the neutral sixth - both central to Arabic musical practice. Emotionally, this movement explores the outer edges of human perception and resilience: how we respond to prolonged stress, how we endure difficulty, and how repetition itself can become both a burden and a source of focus.

The final movement, Raqsa (dance in Arabic), turns sharply toward joy. Lively, playful, and optimistic, it is inspired in part by a virtuosic work by Pablo de Sarasate that William shared with me. This movement celebrates vitality and motion, affirming that even after periods of tension and introspection, there remains an irrepressible human impulse to move, to play, and to dance.

This work was composed for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra’s Concertmaster, William Shaub, as part of the Symphony’s 9 for 90 project in celebration of their 90th anniversary season.