High Notes & Dance: MOODS FOR VIOLIN & PIANO, OP. 15

MOODS FOR VIOLIN & PIANO, OP. 15

COMPOSED BY VIVEK VENUGOPAL - VISITA MUSIC

The whole narrative and concept behind Moods for Violin and Piano by Vivek Venugopal - Visita Music, is that each piece is written to explicitly pinpoint moods, and express them through music.

The composer has therefore named each mood in the seven short compositions that make up this album. The moods are: pensive and hopeful, blissful, uncertain, confused and desolate, whimsical randomness and existential absurdity, romance, and, lost and disenchanted with a glimmer of hope.

Vivek Venugopal - Visita Music

Moods for Violin & Piano, Opus. 15, can be considered a contemporary western classical version of the moods that Indian ragas evoke, so instead of reviewing each piece, or each mood, as the composer has conceived them, we will only describe the music generally so that the listener has some level of understanding of the music, and we’ll leave it to listeners to interpret the moods as they choose while they listen.

A general alert: when one listens to any classical music, Indian or Western, the listener must necessarily engage with the music with greater intensity than when listening to, say, pop music. And to appreciate western music, especially classical music, one needs to be able to recognise and appreciate harmony, the simultaneously sounded tones in chords, and the variations of harmonic devices that composers and musicians use - the intervallic and chordal elements that are used in the accompaniment to melodies.

In Moods for Violin and Piano, the composer voices melodies and creates interesting textures with subtle changes in dynamics or volume of individual notes in the melodies. The violin and piano interact cohesively - with the violin taking tasty, tuneful linear melodic lines, with the piano as the chordal and rhythmic partner, using contrapuntal voicing, artistically distributing spaces, notes and chords. Of course, the piano does take the lead melody too, but continues as the chordal and rhythmic partner.

To this writer/listener, Moods for Violin & Piano, Opus. 15, suggests a sound track, or incidental music that would suit a movie melodrama, or theatrical performance in any country, any language. The music is universal.

Nadine Crasto

Nourhe Khate

Finally, both musicians who have performed on this recording are Indians, one based in Mumbai and the other in Nagaland. The pianist, Nadine Crasto is a Steinway Artist who graduated with a Masters from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and the violinist, Nourhe Khate from Nagaland, graduated with a Masters from Trinity Laban Conservatory, London. It goes without saying, playing instrumental duets requires teamwork, cooperation and mutual respect, and these two musicians, are on the same page musically, so these compositions are in good hands.