Ovchinnikov V. Sonata for Violin and Piano (2nd edition). Piano score and violin part

Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Ovchinnikov (1936–2019) was born in Voronezh in the family of a Soviet army officer. From an early age he revealed his musical gifts, completed a seven-year musical school violin course in five years, simultaneously mastering both the piano and composition. In his city he became famous for his children’s performances, also playing his own works, and on the recommendation of V. Bronin and D. Oistrakh he went to study in Moscow. Moscow surrendered quickly: in 1957, having won the All-Russian and All-Union competitions of those years, Ovchinnikov opened the 1957 Festival of Youth and Students with his symphonic poem Festival.

Ovchinnikov’s chamber works are no less interesting than symphonic ones (he wrote four symphonies, two oratorios, two ballets, an opera, six orchestral suites, as well as symphonic poems, choruses and other large-scale works). As early as his student years, Ovchinnikov’s works were performed by such masters of the stage as D. Oistrakh, E. Gilels, and L. Kogan. In Ovchinnikov’s violin compositions, the instrument’s possibilities are revealed masterfully, they contain diverse techniques and still are comfortable to play: after all, the composer himself was a violinist in his youth. Double stops, harmonics, various strokes, chords and octave technique as well as expressive and complex passages well fit for the fingers distinguish his violin parts and it is not surprising that his Sonata for Violin and Piano, dedicated to L. Kogan, and offered in this edition, was chosen as an obligatory work at the Third Tchaikovsky Competition in 1966. This composition comprehensively reveals the violinist’s technical potential, but at the same time contains no insurmountable difficulties that only competitors of that era could have mastered. Most interesting, however, is his later piece for violin and piano, Napév (A Tune), imbued with the longings of the unsettled Russian soul, in which the classical European piano and violin masterfully convey the balalaika, the folk chant and backyard gatherings.