Valse Blanche:
How Love Comes, Tangiers, October 1958 (2014)
For Violin and Piano
Duration: 6’
First Performance: In studio, Livia Sohn, violin; Benjamin Loeb, piano
Dedication: "For Livia Sohn and Benjamin Loeb."
Publisher: Peermusic Classical
Order Sheet Music: sheetmusicplus | Long & McQuade | Juilliard Bookstore | JW Pepper | Front
Recording: Opera Fantasies for Violin, vol. 2; Naxos 8.573403; Livia Sohn, violin; Benjamin Loeb, piano iTunes | Naxos
Livia Sohn. p/c: Marie Mazzucco and Dario Acosta
Program Note:
Commissioned by Livia Sohn and Benjamin Loeb for an album of opera fantasies (Naxos CD 8.573403), Valse Blanche: How Love Comes, Tangiers, October 1958 reworks material from the composer’s opera, A Woman in Morocco. By turns lubricious, chaste, tormented, and torchy, this set of hyper-expressive variations develops two major themes from the opera, limning the doomed relationship between two lovers in a Tangiers pensione in October 1958. Within the dialogue, the violin assumes the role of Lizzy, a young American journalist, while the piano portrays Ahmed, the Moroccan major domo of the hotel—though their psychological identities may arguably be reversed.
Valse Blanche constitutes one installment of a broader triptych, which also encompasses Valse Noire: Assignation at the Palm Court, 28 June 1914 for cello and piano, and Valse Triste: Wayfaring Stranger, June 1997 for violin and piano.