(un)common thread = MOZART: Violin Sonata K. 454; BEETHOVEN Violin Sonata #3; SHANAHAN: Audacity for Violin and Percussion; KIM: Migrating Home for Solo Violin and Looper Pedal – Ariana Kim/Violin – Saffron Soul Records – (74:40, complete contents detailed below) (6/17/26) [Distr. by Saffron Soul Records] ****:
This album’s “uncommon thread” lies in the art of improvisation, both in Western classical music and violinist Kim’s fascination with Easter music, especially after her five months of studies in India on the subject of Carnatic music. The search to find connections between disparate cultural traditions would appear to embrace a more “global” sense of community through music, illustrating the creative spontaneity each of the diverse genres emanates.
With a piercing, thin-toned instrument, Kim opens with Mozart’s 1784 Violin Sonata in B-flat Major, conceived for virtuoso Regina Strinasacchi, whom Mozart would accompany in Vienna. The demand for improvisation foisted itself upon Mozart, who had not written out his keyboard part at the time of the debut. The first movement, Largo – Allegro, elicits a series of elegant gestures that soon break out into a dynamic, highly embellished dialogue between the instruments, a richly vibrant demonstration of musically clear synergy when two polished participants engage in spirited filigree. The second movement Andante presents a luxuriously chromatic melody, a cantilena set above a slow, parlando keyboard part. The opportunity for ornament seems built into the casual but opulent melodic evolution, a dialogue wherein each player may alternate in his extension of the ardent moment, then conjoin in sumptuous, sometimes meandering, harmony. The last movement, Allegretto, illustrates the fertile, acerbic wit Mozart musters in the course of acrobatic gestures for both instruments. The means by which the two principals manage to coordinate their unison finale must have, at the debut, made an astounding spectacle.
Beethoven dedicated his 1798 set of three violin and pianoforte sonatas, Op. 12, to Antonio Salieri, of which the third, in E-flat major, projects a virtuoso sensibility commensurate with the Italian master’s skills as well as Beethoven’s notable gifts for improvisation. Kim’s wiry, plastic approach to the opening Allegro con spirito has her accompanist in full fettle, and the two sail through Beethoven’s genial, playful figures and striking rhetorical gambits, often in quick canons. In spite of Mozart’s models, Beethoven introduces a degree of ardent passion that may well have intimidated his contemporary audience. The coda may have impressed Brahms, with its suggestion that another development section could evolve at the composer’s least whim.
Beethoven’s second movement, Adagio con molto espressivo, sets us an operatic aria owned by the violin, while the piano strums and sashays in rippling sympathy. The tone becomes a bit darker, more earnest and meditative, advancing by fertile modulations and circuitous routes in the manner of an extended improvisation in mincing steps. The keyboard’s long trill establishes a pedal point over which the violin sings a tearful farewell. The spirited final movement, Rondo: Allegro molto, sets us three motives and a “catchy refrain,” played against contrasting, nervously brilliant episodes that occasionally hint at Beethoven’s capacity for polyphony. .
The musical context shifts precipitously to Raga Aallapana (Bahudari) from Mysore, India, as arranged by violinist Kim. Whining optimistically over a fixed pedal point, the Carnatic melody weaves and meanders in various registers and whimsical metric periods.
We hear three original compositions by Shane Shanahan, the composer-percussionist noted for his association with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble. Audacity for violin, djembe, and ocean drum, pays tribute to Barack Obama’s cultural diversity and ambitions for global harmony. The piece blends impulses from Indonesia, Africa, and American jazz. Rather moody and whimsical, proceeds as a series of sonic clusters, engagements of a song with strong African percussion, suddenly breaking off in stride, glissando and pizzicato for the violin. Th piece concludes with an extended raga sensibility.
Oil Field Fires grimly refers to Sadam Houssein’s scorched earth policy of retreat of his troops, as well as various ecological disasters involving the invasion of fossil fuels into earth and waters. Often set as a rhythmic, persistent buzzing, the melodic line and eerie harmonies and African percussion bode badly for our endangered planet.
The most extensive of the Shanahan pieces, Khanda Jog for violin, frame drum, kanjira, and udu, whose impulses derive from South and North Indian Carnatic rhythms, especially common in five beats. A long raga tune sings over a drone bass pedal, it begins to dance more rhythmically, the Jog’s permitting various degrees of improvised interaction.
Kim’s own piece, Migrating Home, announces her debut in composing, utilizing the “uncommon thread” of vintage amp and loop pedal. Often set as a sliding, descending motif for solo violin, the work serves as a lament for the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020 and the domestic invasions of ICE in Minneapolis in early 2026.
Complementing the assemblage of Classical, contemporary and folk idioms, we have tunes from Macedonia and Bulgaria, each with its eccentric metrics in 7 and 13. The Macedonian folk tune plays intimately, sorrowfully, intimating a vocal accompaniment of longing and unfulfilled desire. The Bulgarian Krivo captures the immediacy of the driving 13/8 rhythm, the word itself, meaning “crooked,” inviting various departures from the dervish insistence of the dance.
An album for the musically and geographically adventurous, quite well done.
–Gary Lemco
(un)common thread – exploring improvisation from mozart to macedonia
MOZART: Violin Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 454;
BEETHOVEN: Violin Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 12/3;
Raga Aalapana (arranged by KIM): Bahudri for Solo Violin;
SHANAHAN: Audacity for Violin and Percussion; Oil Field Fires for Violin and Percussion; Khanda Jog for Violin and Percussion;
KIM: Migrating Home for Solo Violin and Looper Pedal;
Traditional Macedonian: Lesnoto Cveta Moma Ubava for Violin and Percussion;
Traditional Bulgarian: Krivo Sadovsko Horo for Violin and Percussion
Performing Artists:
Ariana Kim, violin/
Roger Moseley, fortepiano/
Shane Shanahan, percussion
From Saffron Soul Records, Ariana Kim on violin with “(un)common thread – exploring improvisation from mozart to macedonia”. Classical Music Review by Gary Lemco.
