Le violoniste vert - (2009) ![](images/01_Little_Green_Dot.gif)
for violin and piano
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Marc Chagall
When working in New York City over several seasons, I spent some time with a coach in whose Metropolitan studio there was lithograph of Chagall's Le violoniste vert, 1923-24. This "Green Violinist" oil-on-canvas painting of about 78 x 42 3/4 inches is housed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. The image has remained with me, both in first seeing it in lithograph and then the lustrous, full-sized original which I visited on many occasions. Chagall was born in Russia, named Moishe Shagal in English characters, though the Yiddish and Cyrillic alphabets would have been original. Shagal is a northeast Yiddish version of Segal, and the name we know today is a transliteration of this earlier spelling. As to the violinist, he was a significant figure in the shetl -- a village -- life of White Russia. Chagall chose the subject several times beyond this Cubist-affected painting, a green faced musician with a purple coat above a landscape of sepia and gray and off white.
To capture the various reflections of this painting, the work opens with broad arches of the same four-note chord over which a florid violin rises and soars. Wholly diatonic, it is set apart from later scales with their augment seconds which one often associated with music of the Ashkenazi musical traditions. A few triadic harmonies linger over many measures as the violin essays lines above. The score is intentionally under-marked with forte only to remind at each section to reset the dynamics; interpreters may feel free to alter as they see fit for the instruments and venue.
![](images/Le_violoniste_vert_1.gif)
The major diatonic mood is broken rhythmically with a succession of trills as as second section sings out a dance-like melody in the "fiddle" featuring a scale with two augmented seconds, one between the third and fourth of the scale and one between the sixth and seventh of the scale. Given a number of names, this scale is most often associated with Hungarian gypsy music as well as some forms of klezmer. The accompaniment is a simple, repetitive wash of ascending major and descending minor gestures.
![](images/Le_violoniste_vert_2.gif)
The return in a rondo-like fashion brings the opening gesture back, with small changes in an ongoing development, after which a series of dance motives using a lower open string against the rising upper "voice" in the violin invites a flavor of chromatics in against the diatonic accompaniment, the two then joining into a spiccato-like, brittle moment leading to a cadence point.
![](images/Le_violoniste_vert_3.gif)
The return of the Ashkenazi motive is now on E minor, compared to previous appearances G minor and G minor, the D sharp-E flat fulcrum acting between the tonal regions to further the harmonic development.
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The coda to the piece revisits the arppegiation of the single, four note chord against the insistent trills of the violin, with a final, polytonal brushstroke before the final chords and resolution into what proves to be G major, though no key signature is used for the many regions into which this short work fall.
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[ 11 pages in score, circa 6' 15" ]
The score for Le violoniste vert is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.
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Le violoniste vert
full score
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Le violoniste vert
violin part
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