Rhapsody No. 2 for solo viola by Jessie Montgomery
Published by NYC Music Services
Jessie Montgomery (b 1981) is one of today's most relevant and important interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. She has been involved with Community MusicWorks, a Providence, Rhode Island community outreach music education program, as well as the Sphinx Organization, a Detroit-based nonprofit that supports young African American and Latinx string players. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, and has been performed by such ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, A Far Cry, San Francisco Orchestra, and the St. Louis Symphony.
Montgomery's ''Rhapsody No. 2'' for unaccompanied violin is the second of six projected solo violin works, ''each of which will be dedicated to a different contemporary violinist, and inspired by an historical composer.'' ''Rhapsody No. 2'' was written for Michi Wiancko and is inspired in part by the music of Bela Bartok. It consists of fast, agitated music crossing the violin's entire range, with a slow, mysterious section at its center. It is presented here in the composer's arrangement for solo viola. Master level, Grade 6.