#american #nativeamerican #violinsonata #violin
Composer: Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881-1946)
Violin: Daniel B. Ziesemer
Piano: Jacob T. Bernhardt
This beautiful sonata was composed by Cadman in 1937 when he was in his mid-fifties, and was one of the very few sonatas he wrote. It was composed in three movements, was dedicated to the Midwest American violinist and World War I Army veteran Sol(omon) Cohen. The majority of his works consisted of pieces which used Native American-themes.
Like the first, this second movement of the sonata begins with the piano, soft and dreamy which later becomes a violin-piano duet, the violin’s strains beginning sorrowfully and sweet, full of deep, rich pathos - with the sound of a longing sigh in its voice. Rising and falling with emotion, the strains continue to enrapture the listener’s heart, then fade into a piano solo, then again joined after a moment by the beautifully heartrending notes of the violin.
The second third of the movement introduces a different mood to the piece, that of sprightly, joy-filled strains, full of life and energy, and completely doing away with the poignant and plaintive tonalities.
The last third mimics the mood of the first somewhat, though not in as somber. It is solemn but more thoughtful and composed than fraught with an overwhelming yearning.
This entire movement is very pleasant to listen to, a combination of two melodies - one solemnly sweet, the other enthusiastically gladsome, intertwined together to create a balanced whole.
History of Composer
Born in 1881 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Charles Wakefield Cadman died in Los Angeles in 1946. His musical education came solely from American teachers, from his home state of Pennsylvania, one of whom was the great Luigi Von Kunitz, the Austrian composer, violinist, and orchestral conductor. One of the earliest composers not schooled in the European tradition, his music reflects an independence of thought influenced strictly by Native American sources. His interest in Native music began in 1907 when he read the book on Indian Story and Song by Alice Fletcher, and from then on began to compose many pieces in the tradition of Native American musical style. He had a life-long association with the Indianist Movement in American music, even living with and learning from the Omaha tribe in Nebraska for a time.
Of his maternal heritage, his great-grandfather was the musician Samuel Wakefield, who was an author of both theological and musical books. Samuel Wakefield was made famous for building the first pipe organ on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains, and he also composed many pieces of sacred music.
Cadman started his own musical journey at the age of thirteen, when he began to take piano lessons. When he was fourteen, he paid for his music studies by playing the organ for a church and running errands. He became a prolific composer, who wrote music in many different genres, including Native American-inspired songs, operas, librettos, orchestral suites, cantatas, and chamber works- which category this recording falls into. He worked with Nelle Richmond Eberhart for over 40 years, who penned the words to many of his works which included text. In the 1920s, he moved to Los Angeles, California, and there wrote the scores for various Hollywood films.
In 1935, San Diego’s California Pacific International Exposition made the 4th of September “Cadman Day” in his honor.
He lived and died a bachelor, passing away on the 30th of December in 1946. He was a patriotic American citizen, and was very outspoken in his rebuke of the Nazis- calling Hitler’s regime “repugnant”. Although he was forgotten at the time of his death and remembered no more, his beautiful works will never go out of style with the ones who love his compositions.
Notes by Brieanna Savard
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