The Sonata for Cello (2012) of Adolphus Hailstork is an imposing work whose opening movement contains a gesture of "homage" paid to the Suite No.1 in G Major for Unaccompanied Cello of Johann Sebastian Bach (BWV 1007). Following that polite "nod" however, this work immediately goes to places that Bach didn't have cultural access 295 years ago!! The influence of the closing gigue (jig) from the Bach suite pervades the entire movement, and yet the presence of blues melody strangely works in tandem with the dance, producing a unique musical result and aesthetic effect. The second movement is best described as "a slow tempo blues song in rondo form", but playing and hearing it can also resemble a trip across Pennsylvania on Interstate 80!! Formal structure and travel descriptions cast aside, a secondary melody is introduced bearing a curious indication in the score: "call and response". This indication refers to the tradition of "lining" or "raising” a hymn, which comes from the black sacred music tradition. The final movement reprises thematic material from the previous two movements, engaging in what sounds like the “dialogue, disagreement and dissolved argument...between children”!! Odd as that opening “argument” may sound, it gives way quite fittingly…to the sound of children's play song!! In this manner, the Bachian gigue and blues dance aesthetic of the opening movement are “prayed over” in the call and response of the middle movement road trip. Then “both music and prayer join hands” with the play songs of children in the final movement. TWH
https://youtu.be/1UjVWWLK53k
