Sul Ab for unaccompanied violin
Duration: 3 minutes

Score

Sul Ab was written for violinist Piotr Szewczyk and his Violin Futura project. Sul Ab is a free fantasia, a kind of misplaced cadenza separated from an imaginary original context. As the title may suggest, the piece calls for scordatura, a process in which one or more of the violin strings are detuned prior to beginning the piece. In this case, the lowest string must be raised from G to Ab. Many unique possibilities that are opened up by this new tuning are explored throughout the piece, including the wider array of natural harmonics that the alteration provides. Other prominent features of Sul Ab include the opening Ab–G–E motive which reappears numerous times, many double–stop octaves which often serve as emphatic points of reference or points of resolution, and a fleeting coda of arpeggiating natural harmonics.