Margarita Zelenaia

Suite in Stylistic Dances

Year: 1997

Duration (in minutes): 24'39;

Difficulty: High (professional)

Category: orchestra and chamber orchestra

Instruments: violin

Publisher: Self-Produced

Description: This is the "Suite in Stylistic Dances" in three movements (Waltz -Metamorphoses, Tango - Memory, Foxtrot - Improvisation) for violin and piano. The “Suite” received its world premiere in 1998 at Bruno Walter Auditorium of the Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic violinist Anna Rabinova and myself at the piano. Each of three dances moves through various moods, invoking a mosaic of images with the development of each individual plot.. THEY ALL are the STYLISTIC DANCES, that's why you'll hear two music themes (a'la I. Schtrauss and the other one is close to the Russian art song) with all their metamorphoses in the first movement - Waltz;
an intro of the second movement appears from daydreams (it's entitled the "Tango" (Memory)), and the 1st section starts from the Tango theme on 7/4 (or some combinations of 4/4 and 3/4), like all other dances the Tango is not a dance that functions as a dance, but using the tango as a form of a dance was only a motive to express some ideas about the passionate love story;
finally, the third movement - Foxtrot (Improvisation or an Orchestra Rehearsal) is a light, jazzy (some sections will remind you even musicals) and humoristic, with the singing along with playing in a coda - my idea was to give a humoristic musical portraiture of one of my American friends, who is a conductor.