Lost American Violin Sonatas, Vol. 1 Solomia Soroka, Arthur Greene, Phillip Silver

• Rossetter Gleason Cole (1866 - 1952): Sonata for Violin & Piano in D Major, Op. 8:
• 1 Cole: Sonata for Violin & Piano in D Major, Op. 8: I. Allegro moderato 08:56
• 2 Cole: Sonata for Violin & Piano in D Major, Op. 8: II. Scherzo. Presto - Andante - Tempo I 06:28
• 3 Cole: Sonata for Violin & Piano in D Major, Op. 8: III. Adagio - 06:28
• 4 Cole: Sonata for Violin & Piano in D Major, Op. 8: IV. Allegro con moto 07:52
• Henry Holden Huss (1862 - 1953): Violin Sonata, Op. 19:
• 5 Huss: Violin Sonata, Op. 19: I. Allegro con moto 09:06
• 6 Huss: Violin Sonata, Op. 19: II. Adagio sostenuto 05:27
• 7 Huss: Violin Sonata, Op. 19: III. Allegro molto 06:46
• Henry Schoenefeld (1857 - 1936): Sonata in G Minor, Op. 53 “quasi Fantasia”:
• 8 Schoenefeld: Sonata in G Minor, Op. 53 “quasi Fantasia”: I. Allegro con spirito e energico 12:00
• 9 Schoenefeld: Sonata in G Minor, Op. 53 “quasi Fantasia”: II. Romanze. Andante cantabile e espressivo - Allegro moderato e tranquillo - Andante 07:12
• 10 Schoenefeld: Sonata in G Minor, Op. 53 “quasi Fantasia”: III. Rondo. Vivace 07:12
• Total Runtime 01:17:27

Info for Lost American Violin Sonatas, Vol. 1

This anthology of unknown American violin sonatas – the first of a series – reveals music of astonishing craftsmanship and energy. All three composers – Rossetter Gleason Cole, Henry Holden Huss and Henry Schoenefeld, born less than ten years apart – went to Germany to study before returning to enrich American musical life at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The sheer confidence of their writing, for both violin and piano, in these sonatas, in a bold Brahmsian style, indicates how much more fine music still has to be discovered, in the output of these three men and from their ‘lost generation’ of American composers more generally.

Solomia Soroka, violin
Arthur Greene, piano
Phillip Silver, piano

Solomia Soroka
born in L’viv, Ukraine, made her solo debut at age 10, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the L’viv Philharmonic Orchestra. Her playing combines the powerful background of the Ukrainian system with a passionate exploration of lesser played music, especially Ukrainian and American.

She has appeared as soloist and as chamber musician at concerts and festivals in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Ukraine, USA, Canada, China, Korea, and Taiwan. She is praised for being “a truly wonderful musician” (The Press, Christchurch, New Zealand), her “technical mastery…ferocity, light and mystic lyricism” (Daily Freeman, New York), and as one who “plays with great warmth and authority” (BBC Music Magazine). She has performed with orchestras in Ukraine, Australia, and the United States.

Ms. Soroka has performed premieres of a number of important contemporary Ukrainian compositions for violin, including works by Borys Lyatoshynsky, Myroslav Skoryk and Yevhen Stankovych. Since her U.S. debut in 1997, she has performed throughout the United States. Her recitals in Washington DC were part of the Smithsonian Institute performing arts series and she received the following review in the Washington Post:

“Soroka is a superbly equipped violinist, at ease with the technical challenges of Sarasate or of Jeno Hubay’s Czardas No. 2, but even more impressive in the gentler moments…. Her tone is warm and mellow on the low strings, brilliant on the high strings, perfectly controlled and expressively used.”

Solomia Soroka has toured and recorded extensively with her husband, the pianist Arthur Greene. Their Naxos recording of Four Violin Sonatas by William Bolcom was selected as Recording of the Month with the highest ranking for both artistry and sound quality by Classics Today, and received reviews in various distinguished journals:

“Another virtuoso piece…confidently delivered by this brilliant duo” (Gramophone) Their recording of the violin sonatas of Nikolai Roslavets, also for Naxos, has received international attention. “Soroka seemed utterly confident, catching a haunting, languid quality within Roslavets’s elusive harmonic idiom……” (The Strad)

In the past ten years Soroka has been recording for Toccata Records, based in London, where she made six premier recordings, of music by American composer Arthur Hartmann, Ukrainian Myroslav Skoryk, Mykola Lysenko, and Yevhen Stankovych, and Holocaust composers Leone Sinigaglia and Bernhard Sekles.

Solomia Soroka is currently a violin professor at Goshen College, Indiana, and interim professor at the Bowling Green State University. She is the artistic director of the Sherer Violin/Piano Competition for young musicians and the artistic director of the multicultural series “Musical Evenings at the Ukrainian Museum” in Detroit. Ms. Soroka has served on the faculty of chamber music at the Kiev Conservatory, and has taught at the Music Fest Perugia in Italy, the Castleman Quartet Program, Pilsen Summer Academy, Schlern Music Festival, and Vivace International Festival. She is active giving masterclasses in her native Ukraine, USA, China, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, Czech Republic, and Italy.

She studied with Hersh Heifetz, Bohodar Kotorovych, Liudmyla Zvirko and Charles Castleman.

Booklet for Lost American Violin Sonatas, Vol. 1