Pizzicato e Cantabile | SONATA FOR TWO

Performers:

Marta Hereha – violin
Yurii Danylov – piano

Programme:

Johannes Brahms
Hungarian Dances Nos. 1, 2, 7
Scherzo

Maurice Ravel
Sonata No. 2
Tzigane

Myroslav Skoryk
Spanish Dance (from the music to Lesya Ukrainka’s drama The Stone Host)

Valerii Kvasnevskyi
Carpathian Estampes

The musical duo of violinist Marta Hereha and pianist Yurii Danylov is known for its expressive contrasts — like the ocean’s depths, where calm waters may instantly turn to a storm. This programme centers around the sonata genre, represented by the Sonata No. 2 by the icon of Impressionism, Maurice Ravel.

Inspired by Béla Bartók’s violin sonatas, Ravel began composing his own in 1922, but it wasn’t until 1927 that he completed the work from scattered sketches. He dedicated the sonata to his friend, violinist Hélène Jourdan-Morhange. Their friendship also gave rise to the dazzling, virtuosic Tzigane — one of Ravel’s most brilliant pieces for violin. The sonata glows not only with Romantic echoes but also features a blues-inspired second movement — a bold gesture of modernity in early 20th-century chamber music.

The concert opens with Brahms’s fiery Hungarian Dances and his dramatic Scherzo, then transitions to the rhythmic fusion of habanera and bolero in Myroslav Skoryk’s Spanish Dance, drawn from his incidental music to Lesya Ukrainka’s The Stone Host.

The evening will conclude with a musical journey to the heart of the Ukrainian Carpathians, conveyed through the vivid colors and folk-inspired textures of Valerii Kvasnevskyi’s Carpathian Estampes.