MORE OR LESS, FOR PRE-RECORDED AND LIVE VIOLIN

Mark Applebaum
(b. Chicago, IL, 1967)

Composed 2020; 5 minutes

Mark Applebaum writes:

“Was Shakespeare inconvenienced when he wrote his 150-some sonnets? One presumes that he was not ‘put out’ to express himself within the inherited form of the sonnet: fourteen lines comprising three quatrains and a couplet. One speculates that he was, in fact, inspired by the confines of the form. Constraint can be the artist’s best friend. 

Mozart willingly adopted the sonata allegro form, just as Monk embraced the 12-bar blues, and McCartney employed the contrasting verse-chorus song structure. Alongside their radical, experimental impulses, each of these giants worked—to brilliant effect—within the constraints of received forms. 

The aforementioned examples are willing ones, circumstances in which the artist was happy to adopt a constraint. (When I accept a commission to write a string quartet, I don’t add pipe organ.) But what about necessitated constraints? The pandemic got me thinking about them. I divide that territory into three categories: isolation (which was the most puissant artistic constraint during the pandemic), technical limitation and disability. 

Olivier Messiaen did not ask to be a prisoner of war; but when, during his incarceration, he found only a clarinet, violin, cello and piano to make music with, he composed the brilliant Quartet for the End of Time. Would that piece have been better if he had unlimited instrumental resources? I suspect that the idea would never have occurred to him without the pressures of isolation. 

John Cage invented the prepared piano because the theater space for his 1938 Bacchanale was not large enough to accommodate the percussion ensemble he preferred. Thank heavens Cage confronted this technical limitation and invented his through it: composers to this day willingly write for prepared piano. 

This brings us to disability. Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen learned to play with one arm after losing the other in an automobile accident; jazz guitar virtuoso Django Reinhardt reformulated his playing after burning his fingers in a fire; and concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein, after losing his right arm in the first World War, magnificently performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major written just for him. 

So, when I learned that my dear friend Livia Sohn—among the world’s greatest living violinists—lost the use of two of her left-hand fingers due to the neurological disorder focal dystonia, my first thought was ‘there should be some violin literature that uses just the other two fingers.’ This led to More Or Less, a piece that can be played with just the first two fingers of the left hand. (Happy Update: after several years of rehabilitation, Livia is again playing with all of her fingers. So now she actually ‘cheats’ when playing my piece. That’s a good thing, of course.) 

The piece, dedicated to Livia Sohn with great admiration and affection, is scored for violin and pre-recorded violin. Because what could be better than one Livia? Two Livias: one live, and one pre-recorded. That’s a lot of Livia. At the same time, this piece can be played with just two fingers of the left hand. 

So less is more…well, more or less.”