Lonely Suite (Ballet for a Lonely Violinist)

by Lera Auerbach

Dedicated to violinist Vadim Gluzman in 2002, Lera Auerbach’s Lonely Suite seems to purposely avoid elements of virtuosic violin playing that are otherwise typically present in the rest of the violin repertoire.

According to Auerbach, Lonely Suite is “an exploration on the themes of loneliness and fragmentation” - it is fundamentally a work that is “about one’s own fears, about silence, about facing oneself without escape.” Indeed, these themes permeate the piece from beginning to end, with the violinist engaging in six very different dialogues with themselves.

Dancing with Oneself

While seemingly simple, Dancing with Oneself provides the player with chances for improvisation on the opening theme. Themes appear in both pizzicato and arco form, and the feeling of a lonely waltz stays constant throughout the movement as the character of the ‘lonely’ violinist entertains themselves with limited musical resources.

Boredom and No Escape

Once the violinist is done dancing, boredom quickly sets in in the second movement. In Boredom, Auerbach instructs the violinist to play “sadly” and “with a dull sound,” at times calling to mind a student mindlessly playing a double-stop etude. Boredom takes the backseat to anxiety in No Escape, where the expected violinistic virtuosity comes into play. Virtuosic techniques such as double stopping, bariolage, and wide leaps in range return the violinist to the viruosity expected of their instrument.

Imaginary Dialogue

Following the anxiety attack of No Escape, the violinist engages with a different side of their mind in Imaginary Dialogue. Muted flautando questions and answers go back and forth, repeating themselves with no definitive answer. Without reaching a conclusive end to any of the questions presented, the violin’s internal dialogue gives up and dies away on gentle harmonics.

Worrisome Thought and Question

While the violinist seems to reach a point of peace at the end of Imaginary Dialogue, this peace is abruptly interrupted by Worrisome Thought. The violin turns into a percussion instrument, instructed by Auerbach to “[knock] the stick of the bow on the tailpiece, while covering the strings with the left hand to avoid reverberance.” While a very different kind of anxiety from No Escape, Worrisome Thought is still anxiety-ridden — there is no conclusive answer to the F# (the only real pitch in this movement), leaving a thought lingering in the violinist’s mind. With no time signature and no key signature, the violin’s three-note motive in Question is repeated ad lib at barely a whisper throughout the movement. Ending on a held high F, the question is repeated a final time with its answer — according to Horst A. Scholz, “in Ivesian manner” — still absent from the movement.

About Lera Auerbach

Lera Auerbach (1973—) is a poet, composer, concert pianist and visual artist. She has published more than 100 works for opera, ballet, orchestral and chamber music, and performs as concert pianist throughout the world. Her work is championed by leading artists, conductors, stage directors and choreographers, with recent works staged by the San Francisco Ballet, Stanislavsky Theater, Hamburg Opera, Theatre an der Wein, National Ballet of China, Finnish National Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Netherlands Dance Theater, Semperoper and Staatskapelle Dresden, and New York’s Lincoln Center. Lera is a regular contributor to the Best American Poetry blog, has published three books of poetry and prose in Russian, and is the author of several librettos. Prizes for her works include two Golden Masks, Echo Klassik and the Hindemith Prize. She holds degrees from the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media and The Julliard School, where she received the P. and D. Soros Fellowship. The world Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, selected Lera in 2007 as a Young Global Leader and in 2014 as a Cultural Leader, where she lectured on borderless creativity, a fascinating topic that she also presented at the university of Michigan, Harvard University and the Open Society Institute and other ventures.

All images created by and used with permission by Sarah Wilson.