This quartet of chamber
works by Easley Blackwood is presented
in roughly reverse chronological order
beginning with the most recent, the
Second Viola Sonata of 2001. This is
a traditional five-movement work of
some twenty-four minutes and its ethos
is markedly late-Romantic; "distinctly
conservative" is the composer’s
own description. The Brahmsian debt
is fairly clear and the high point is
the fine lyric trio section, redolent
of the late nineteenth century that
sits surrounded by more active material.
The fourth movement is a rather melancholy
fantasia.
The First Violin Sonata
was written in 1960 and is an altogether
tougher nut. Though he cites Hindemith
and Schoenberg as influential here it’s
the latter that seems the more ascendant.
Cast in three movements the Adagio has
toughly lyric playing in alt and the
finale is full of raspy drama. It’s
this movement that most catches the
ear – pizzicato-laced and dynamic it
has some moments of fugitive Hindemithian
lyricism amidst the obsessive patterns
rendered by the piano. This is a strong,
not especially ingratiating but powerful
statement.
The 1968 Trio was a
product of Darmstadt influence. Its
wintry atonality is competently presented
and its sombre cast is reinforced by
a tightly argued schema. It makes no
attempt to appeal to much other than
the cerebral and I found it alarmingly
off-putting. Busy, clotted writing informs
the opening movement of the First Viola
Sonata of 1953, his opus 1. Here at
least we find Blackwood giving in to
a penchant for lyricism, and in the
fast second movement the two instruments
take it in turns to make their statements
before some increasingly urgent material
is unleashed. Here the fulsome and the
terse co-exist to mutual benefit.
Blackwood is himself
the pianist and is joined by able colleagues.
The notes are also the composer’s own.
I found the lack of consonance between
the recent Viola Sonata and the other
works both remarkable and perplexing;
extremes of this kind require sympathetic
listening.
Jonathan Woolf
Charles Pikler (violin and viola) 
