Viola Sonata, Einzige Tage: 井上祐子(Va)Kravchuk(S)F.pott S.philips(P)

In June 2009, Francis Pott attended a performance of his Cello Sonata at the Mananan Arts Festival. Intrigued by the mysterious Milner Tower on Bradda Head, guarding the entrance to the bay, he walked up to it on a blustery summer's day. By the time he returned, ideas for a companion sonata for viola and piano had come into being. Not long before this, the Japanese-born, London-based violist Yuko Inoue had requested that Francis consider writing her a piece. The Sonata that eventually resulted is a sweepingly romantic halfhour work embodying the composer's response to the dramatic southwestern coastline of the Isle of Man and, in particular, to two of the various towers dotted along it's length: Milner Tower and Corrin's Tower. On this new CD, the Sonata is paired with Einzige Tage (Unrepeatable Days), a cycle featuring song settings inspired by the Russian poets Boris Pasternak and Francis POTT Anna Akhmatova.