Melia Watras

MELIA WATRAS: KREUTZER
for violin, viola and cello (2016)

World Premiere: Frequency Ensemble (Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; Melia Watras, viola; Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, cello); October 23, 2016, Seattle, WA

Duration: 13:31

Program Notes:
Kreutzer for violin, viola and cello traces a path of influence of Ludwig van Beethoven’s ninth sonata for violin and piano, Op. 47,  known as the Kreutzer Sonata. In the original manuscript, Beethoven dedicated the work to violinist George Bridgetower, who gave the premiere with Beethoven at the piano in 1803. I have read various reasons for why the dedication was changed when the piece was published in 1805 to violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, which provided the sonata with its nickname, even though Kreutzer was never to perform the piece. 

Beethoven’s sonata inspired Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata, which in turn provided the basis for Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 (subtitled The Kreutzer Sonata); all three of these works have sparked the imaginations of countless artists in many mediums.

My piece, Kreutzer, consists of four movements, each containing related source material. Janáček opens the third movement of his string quartet with a reference (in canon) to Beethoven’s second theme of the first movement of the sonata. I created a motive that I derived from the above two phrases, and use all three to form the DNA of the piece.

—Melia Watras