Charm, Passion, Acrobatics, and Kunc

I just learned that Misha Galaganov's recording of the Pierre Kunc Viola Sonata is finally finished and will be available on June 10th for pre-order on Amazon music.

I love the piece so much that I made a fresh engraving of it with a corrected viola part, and with editing help from Mr. Galaganov, who, in 2018, was one of only a handful of people who knew the piece (another was my stand-partner Daniel McCarthy, who turned pages for Mr. Galaganov's performance in Texas. Small viola world.)

I attribute the lack of popularity of the piece to the fact that the original viola part, with its dozens of errors, makes playing this very difficult piece even more difficult to put together. The engraving that I put in the IMSLP is probably the most massive engraving project I have done, but it was a labor of love and devotion, and I'm very pleased with the way it came out.

Mr. Galaganov, who sent me an audio file of his performance of this piece, is a teriffic violist. And he has great taste in his choice of music.

Here's a look at the first two pages of the piece:

You can read more about Pierre Kunc here.