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Yearly Archives: 2013

Program Notes: Doric String Quartet

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Franz Joseph Haydn: String Quartet in G minor, Op. 20, no. 3

A strong new current of artistic expression swept through central Europe during the late 1760s and early 1770s, known as Sturm und Drang (storm and stress). While not every work was stormy or stressful, the moniker served notice that composers were turning away from the light, gentle, superficially pleasing world of the style galant (courtly style) to infuse their music with greater emotional depth and stronger subjective feelings. Sturm und Drang was evident in the relatively large number of works written in unusual keys (especially in the minor mode).

Another important new aspect of the Op. 20 quartets was the liberation of the cello part from servitude as a mere bass accompaniment, and the full participation of all four instruments as near-equals. It was probably sheer coincidence that an early edition of these quartets used as its frontpiece a drawing of a rising sun (hence, the nickname “Sun” Quartets), but the symbolism, accidental or otherwise, is obvious, signifying both the rise of a new musical style and the ascent of Haydn as a fully mature composer of string quartets. These works bear another nickname as well, Die grossen Quartette, which translates as either the great quartets or the large-scale, fully-formed quartets (in contrast to the slighter works that preceded them). Both designations are apt.

There are additional unusual features to be found in the Quartet Op. 20, No. 3. The division of the fiery main theme of the first movement into seven-bar phrases creates a most irregular pattern. The development section of this movement begins in the same key as the exposition (G minor), another exceptional procedure. The minuet movement continues the tone of tragedy and dark passion, possibly providing the model for Mozart in the analogous movement of his famous G minor symphony some years later. Following a slow movement of exceptional breadth and depth, a spirited sonata-form finale brings the G minor quartet to a close.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold: String Quartet no. 3 in D major, Op. 34

Millions of movie-goers have thrilled to the brash, swashbuckling themes, the sumptuously scored love music and the grandly heroic evocations of historical pageantry in Korngold’s film scores like The Adventures of Robin Hood, Anthony Adverse, Of Human Bondage, Kings Row, Captain Blood and The Sea Hawk and others. But late in life, Korngold returned to composing strictly classical music as he had done back in Vienna before his twelve-year stint in Hollywood. The third string quartet, composed in 1944-1945 while Korngold was living in Hollywood, was the first happy result of this decision. It was also the first concert work in which Korngold incorporated themes from his films, a move he made assuming that his film scores would soon be forgotten. (How wrong he was!). The first performance was given by the Roth Quartet in Los Angeles in 1946. The score is dedicated to Korngold’s friend, the great conductor Bruno Walter, also living in Hollywood at the time.

The first movement is laid out in traditional sonata form, with a flowing, twisting and highly chromatic opening theme followed a minute or two later by a more relaxed, lyrically expressive second theme dripping with nostalgia.

The Scherzo has the character of a grisly, macabre dance as might be enacted by wraiths or gnomes. By way of total contrast, the central Trio passage is warmly romantic, based on a theme from Korngold’s own favorite film score, Between Two Worlds.

Film romance appears in the slow movement as well. The main theme comes from the love music in The Sea Wolf, its gently rocking rhythm suggestive of the motion of ocean waters. Near the end, a descending three-note motif, heard a dozen times, might be heard as the haunting call of a siren.

The Finale is all energy, virtuosity and rambunctious behavior. The second theme comes from Korngold’s final film score, Deception, which was still unreleased at the time he wrote the quartet.

Franz Schubert: String Quartet no. 14 in D minor, D. 810 (Death and the Maiden)

Schubert began his Quartet in D minor in early 1824. The previous year had brought him to the nadir of despair and frustration. Not least of the reasons for his depression was a prolonged stay in the hospital during which he came to the realization that his illness (most certainly syphilis, for which no cure then existed) was probably fatal and that he had not long left to live. The prevailing dark, somber and tragic mood of the D minor quartet reflects this despondent state of mind, and the composer’s gloomy thoughts on life and death, the past and the future. All four movements are in minor tonalities (in itself highly unusual), and there are just two extended passages where the music moves into the major mode (the fourth variation of the second movement and the Trio of the third).

The quartet takes its nickname, Death and the Maiden, from a song of the same title Schubert had set seven years earlier to a poem by Matthias Claudius. Schubert borrowed the song’s opening passage, slightly modified, to serve as the basis of a set of variations for the second movement. This passage represents the slow tread of Death as it approaches the girl. Curiously enough, Schubert’s score makes no mention of any subtitle; “the Death and the Maiden quartet” is an appellation assigned by later generations. The work was first performed in public in Vienna on February 1, 1826 at the residence of Josef Barth.

The work opens with music of great visceral impact, a full, chordal figure hurled forth with vehemence by the entire ensemble. The embedded triplet figure is destined to play a major role throughout the entire quartet.

The theme Schubert uses to construct the variations of the second movement is eminently suited to its purpose. Each of the five ensuing variations explores some aspect of this simple G minor subject, adding new layers of meaning, figuration and expressivity.

The Scherzo also derives from borrowed material, this time a re-working of one of Schubert’s German Dances from D. 790. Like the first movement, the music is bold in its gestures and often strikingly agitated.

The final movement is almost manic in its unflagging momentum and urgency. Again the triplet figure pervades the music, and is found as an element in each of the three themes. The music reaches almost unbearable levels of intensity, culminating in a veritable whirlwind of notes that brings the quartet to a sensational close.

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

Program Notes: Benjamin Grosvenor

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Program Notes: Benjamin Grosvenor

J. S. Bach: Five transcriptions
Benjamin Grosvenor opens his program with a series of piano transcriptions, a genre that was wildly popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then went out of fashion, and is now making something of a comeback. Transcription – the transferal from one medium to another – is as old as music itself. Many of our greatest composers – Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt and a host of others – practiced it. “The beauty of the transcription,” writes critic Andrew Farach-Colton (Gramophone, July 2010), “is that (at its best) it opens two windows simultaneously: one onto the world of the composer and another onto the world of the transcriber.”

Today we hear five examples of transcriptions from Bach, an inveterate transcriber himself. In fact, the last of these, the instrumental “Sinfonia” from Cantata no. 29, is itself already a transcription Bach had made from the Prelude to his E-major solo violin partita (no. 3, BWV 1006). On today’s program it is fittingly preceded by another of Saint-Saëns’ many transcriptions, the reposeful, gently flowing Largo movement from the C major solo violin sonata (no. 3, BWV 1005). From another Bach cantata (No. 22, Ertödt’ uns durch dein Güte) we hear the final movement, which Walter Rummel transcribed precisely from the original – a continuously flowing line in the violins punctuated by five phrases of the chorale text sung by four-part chorus. “Bach-Siloti” is a hyphenation well known to pianists. Alexander Siloti (1863-1945) was a Russian-born pianist, composer and teacher and one of Liszt’s last students. He created over two hundred piano transcriptions, one of the most famous being the Prelude we hear today. However, its provenance is in doubt; Johann Tobias Krebs is often cited as the most probable author. The program begins with one of the numerous Bach transcriptions by the great German pianist Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991).

Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 4 in E flat major, Op. 7
Beethoven began writing piano sonatas in earnest in 1793 (the three so-called “Electoral” Sonatas are juvenilia, written by a thirteen-year-old), shortly after the move from Bonn to his adopted city of Vienna. The first three sonatas were published as a group (Op. 2), but for his next work in the genre, written in 1796-1797, Beethoven had this “Grande Sonate,” as he called it, published under its own opus number. The designation is appropriate, for it is the longest (slightly over half an hour) of all Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas save the Hammerklavier.

Spaciousness of design and an almost symphonic aura also contribute to the justification for calling this a “Grand Sonata.” Orchestrally conceived touches abound, right from the opening measures where the steadily repeated E flats in the bass would almost surely go to violas or cellos. Wide leaps, frequent use of resounding six- and even seven-note chords, smoothly gliding octaves in the right hand alone and lightning-fast scale passages all suggest the resources of a symphony orchestra. As pianist Anton Kuerti notes, “The richness and diversity of material, the dovetailing of lines, the antiphonal responses and the sumptuousness of design … all reinforce this impression.”

The first movement opens with a surge of energy that persists until the final chord. Beethoven’s characteristic gestures, such as startling contrasts of loud and soft, pregnant pauses, and strong attacks on weak beats, are found in abundance. The coda is announced with another typically Beethovenian gesture: the sudden, almost violent wrenching of the tonality into new territory by means of a simple harmonic sideslip.

The word “grand” turns up again in association with the slow movement specifically, whose performance direction is con gran espressione – with deep expression. With its aura of profound reverence, hymn-like writing, long silences that speak as eloquently as sound, a dynamic range from pianissimo to fortissimo, and a duration of about ten minutes, this movement encompasses a small world by itself. Formally it is a simple ABA structure, with the contrasting central episode in the warm key of A flat major. Again there is a coda of significant length.

The third movement combines features of the courtly minuet and the more playful scherzo. Beethoven called it neither, allowing a simple Allegro to serve as its title. The constant overlapping and dovetailing of voices imply the interplay of orchestral instruments. Pianist Charles Rosen calls the contrasting Trio, written in the rare key of E flat minor, “an atmospheric exercise in tone color, with the melody hidden in an arpeggiated motion of triplets.”

The light-hearted, gracious tone of the finale, a sonata-rondo design (ABA-C-ABA), gives way to a fiery central episode in C minor pervaded with rushing thirty-second notes in perpetual motion. In a surprise move, Beethoven ends this “grand” sonata not with an imposing flourish but with a quiet bow.

Alexander Scriabin: Mazurkas, Op. 3, and Valse, Op. 38
The life of Alexander Scriabin was one of the strangest in the history of music. He started out by writing graceful, sensuous, quasi-Chopinesque little piano pieces and ended up totally, even maniacally, absorbed in mysticism and the occult. As with Chopin, most of Scriabin’s music is for solo piano (the balance is for orchestra). Also like Chopin, there are nocturnes, preludes, mazurkas, etudes, impromptus, waltzes and sonatas. The ten mazurkas of Op. 3 date from 1888-1889 when Scriabin was still a student at the Moscow Conservatory and very much under the influence of Chopin, though one could never mistake the Scriabinesque harmonic palette for Chopin’s. All are in ternary (ABA) form, each has a character of its own, which might range from gently wistful to exuberantly joyous, and all exhibit the characteristic rhythmic impulses of the mazurka.

Pianist Yevgeny Sudbin poetically describes the Waltz Op. 38 of 1903 (one of the few Scriabin wrote in this form) as “a fugacious memory of a distant past. … This piece is a magic box. Opened slowly, the intensifying, blinding light emitting from inside sets the universe ablaze just to vanish again at the end, leaving but a luscious trace.”

Frédéric Chopin: Polonaise in F sharp minor, Op. 44
Nowhere in Chopin’s output do the national pride, dignified grandeur and defiant power of Poland find greater expression than in the polonaises. The polonaise originated in the late sixteenth century as a stately processional dance in triple metre. It was the polonaise that served as processional music for the lords and ladies to parade past the newly enthroned King of Poland in 1574 (Henry III of Anjou).  Pianist Garrick Ohlsson calls the F sharp minor polonaise Op. 44 of 1841 “tragic, compulsive and complex.” Chopin himself referred to it as “a fantasy in the form of a polonaise.” Embedded in this polonaise – the longest by far of any Chopin polonaise excepting the unique Polonaise-Fantaisie Op. 61 – is another dance form entirely, a mazurka. Preceding this is a long passage featuring an incessant rhythmic pattern reminiscent of drum rolls, and virtually devoid of melody. Framing the entire structure is thematic material that few will deny is some of the grandest Chopin ever conceived. The music’s epic scale and tragic tone, the powerful sonority drawn from the piano, and the striking contrast between the majestic polonaise and the gentle mazurka contained therein (the critic James Huneker called it “a flower between two abysses”) all contribute to making this one of Chopin’s grandest creations.

J. Strauss II: Blue Danube arranged by A. Schulz-Evler
or Arabesques On Themes from Johann Strauss’s Waltz “On The Beautiful Blue Danube”, Op. 12
NOTE: Title taken directly from the title page as first published in Vienna, c. 1900, translated from German into English

More than any other kind of music, it is the waltz that conjures up visions of Vienna as a kind of romantic never-never land. Of all the composers who contributed to the rich heritage of Vienna’s dance music, it is Johann Strauss II, the “Waltz King,” who reigns supreme. Leading the list of his many waltzes is the immortal On the Beautiful Blue Danube, (The Blue Danube, for short). Originally written in 1867 as a choral piece for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association, the words were soon discarded in favor of a purely instrumental version, the form in which it is most familiar today.

Naturally, anything so popular has been subjected to countless arrangements. One of these, created in or about 1900, is for solo piano by the Polish pianist and composer Adolf (or Andrei or Andrej) Schulz-Evler (1852-1905). The rather cumbersome title, Arabesques on Themes from the Waltz “On the Beautiful Blue Danube,” is nevertheless an accurate description, for indeed, what Schulz-Evler has done is essentially to follow the same sequence of themes from Strauss’s original (in itself, in fact, a whole string of waltzes), while copiously adorning the music with arabesques, filigree and other decorative touches. The result is a tour de force that captivates with its charm and dazzles with its outlandish virtuosity, sweeping listeners into the music’s magical orbit and sending them home radiantly happy.

In an article devoted to “The Return of the Piano Transcription” some years ago (Classical Pulse!, June/July 1994), Philip Kennicott had these words to offer about Schulz-Evler’s contribution: “Strauss’s familiar waltz themes are decadently encrusted with a staggering amount of frippery and frills. The piece lurches from one insane technical hurtle to another. One wants to shout both ‘Stop this madness!’ and ‘More! More!’ at the same time. And underneath it all there is an elegance, a coy gracefulness; one marvels that any human being would train himself so thoroughly as to be able to accomplish this kind of playing.”

 

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

Program Notes: Ning Feng

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Program Notes: Ning Feng

Ludwig van Beethoven: Violin sonata no. 1 in D major, Op. 12, no. 1
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his first violin sonatas, a set of three (Op. 12) in 1797-98. Six more sonatas appeared by early 1803, and one more in 1812. Although we refer to these ten works as “violin sonatas,” in the original scores the music is invariably identified as being “for the harpsichord or fortepiano and a violin” (rather than the other way around). Such was the case with most eighteenth-century works of this type, but hardly true with Beethoven, where we can see in even the first sonata the nearly equal partnership of the two instruments. Graceful themes, transparent textures and traditional accompaniment figures are found in abundance. Yet mingling with these attributes we also find a robustness and a boldly independent spirit straining to burst the bonds of classical restraint and moderation. This sonata-form movement combines a number of musical ideas in an atmosphere of brilliance and strength. The slow central movement is an orthodox theme and variations set in A major. Four variations, including one (the third) in the minor mode with extremes of dynamic contrast, are built from the sweetly tender theme. The finale is a rondo, written in a lively, playful style, and it incorporates several examples of the rough humour for which Beethoven later became renowned.

Edward Elgar: Violin sonata in E minor, Op. 82
Elgar’s father, in addition to owning a music shop, tuned pianos and played the organ at church, so it was almost inevitable that young Edward would learn these instruments. But the violin was the instrument he truly loved. He played it in many amateur orchestras, and for a time planned on a solo career. Hence, it is not surprising to find a rather large number of works for violin from his early years as a composer. His first published piece was a Romance for violin and orchestra. Opus numbers 3, 4, 9, 12, 15, 17, 22 and 24 are also for violin with either piano or orchestral accompaniment. His Violin concerto (Op. 61) is one of the most significant of the twentieth century. Yet, unaccountably, the Violin sonata is neglected in almost inverse proportion to the fame of the concerto. This sonata, Elgar’s last work for violin, written in 1918, is a 25-minute masterpiece imbued with the spontaneous lyricism of Schubert and the passionate warmth of Brahms.

Elgar himself left this concise description of his sonata: “The first movement is bold and vigorous, then a fantastic, curious movement with a very expressive middle section; a melody for the violin they say it is as good or better than anything I have done in the expressive way … the last movement is very broad and soothing, like the last movement of the Second Symphony.”

Manuel de Falla: Suite Populaires Espagnole
Manuel de Falla regarded the promotion of Spanish music as his mission in life, and his Siete canciónes populaires españoles (Seven Spanish Folkongs) are just one of the many manifestations of this purpose. The texts are anonymous, but the tunes have been traced to actual popular songs from all over Spain. Written in 1914-1915 for voice and piano, the songs were first heard in Madrid sung by Luisa Vela with the composer at the piano on January 14, 1915. They were later orchestrated by the composer’s friend Ernesto Halffter in 1938-1945 and by Luciano Berio in 1978. Additionally there exist arrangements for violin (by the Polish violinist Paul Kochanski in 1924), for viola, and for cello, in each case with the string instrument replacing voice. In this form, the songs are sometimes known as the Suite populaire espagnole (minus the second song, “Seguidilla murciana”).

“El paño moruno” (The Moorish cloth) is set to a pulsating Moorish rhythm from the southeastern province of Murcia. The words to the song deplore the stain on the lovely cloth that will cause its selling price to plummet.

In “Asturiana” a weeping woman seeks consolation under a pine tree, which itself breaks into tears out of compassion. The melody comes from Asturias, in Spain’s far north.

From Aragon, another northern province, comes a “Jota” in rapid triple meter, about two lovers in a clandestine relationship.

“Nana” is a lullaby from the southernmost province of Andalusia, whose songs have a decidedly oriental cast.

“Canción” (song) is another love song, this one about eyes with traitorous qualities.

“Polo” is a wailing lament from Andalusia over the heartache of unrequited love. The fiery flamenco idiom will be familiar to those who know de Falla’s famous ballet score The Three-Cornered Hat.

Igor Stravinsky: Duo Concertante for violin and piano
The Duo Concertant is Stravinsky’s only original work for violin and piano, composed in 1931 and 1932 as one component of a program for the composer and the violinist Samuel Dushkin to play on European concert tours. The first performance was given in Berlin on October 28, 1932. (A 1933 performance with these artists can be heard on YouTube.) George Balanchine choreographed it in 1972.

The titles of the five movements suggest inspiration from the pastoral poets of antiquity, and Stravinsky himself claimed that “the spirit and form” of the Duo Concertant were determined by his love of this poetry. However, as ever with this composer’s comments, one must be wary of taking them too literally. In fact, with the exception of the “Gigue,” there is little to connect the titles with the character of the music. Abram Loft, first violinist of the Fine Arts Quartet for many years, suggests that “the Duo Concertante will show to best effect as an oasis of coolness and reserve, surrounded in concert …by works of more outspokenly ‘Romantic’ quality.”

Franz Waxman: Carmen Fantasie
Ever since the premiere of Bizet’s Carmen in 1875, composers from A to Z have been creating fantasies, variations, paraphrases and transcriptions based on this opera, probably the most popular ever written. Among the best known works of this type for violin and orchestra (or piano) is the Carmen Fantasie by Franz Waxman, a composer best remembered for his 144 Hollywood film scores (Rebecca, The Philadelphia Story, Sunset Boulevard, Rear Window, Peyton Place, etc.). Waxman wrote his Carmen Fantasie for Jascha Heifetz in 1946. He also used this music as part of his film score for Humoresque.

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

Program Notes: Augustin Hadelich

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Program Notes: Augustin Hadelich

Robert Schumann: Violin sonata no. 1 in A minor, Op. 105
Schumann wrote both of his completed sonatas for violin and piano in 1851. His wife Clara played the piano parts at their public premieres with violinists Ferdinand David (No. 1 in 1852) and Joseph Joachim (No. 2 in 1853). Though frequently recorded, these sonatas are only occasionally heard in the concert hall. The violin part tends to remain in the lower range where it merges, rather than contrasts, with the piano’s sonority; the upper range of the violin is seldom exploited; thematic ideas within the sonata-form movements are not always clearly differentiated; and not every movement is free from mechanical repetitiveness. But counterbalancing these qualities are Schumann’s often passionate themes, poetic ideas, rich textures and rhythmic urgency that contribute many inspired moments to the music.

The A minor sonata exemplifies many of these assets well in its opening bars. Instructed to play “with passionate expression”, the violinist plunges headlong into a sweeping theme full of romantic yearning and grand gestures. The second movement opens with a capricious but sunny principal theme that alternates with two short episodes, the first soulful, the second bustling. The turbulent, agitated mood returns in the finale. Violin and piano chase each other through a skittish first theme, whose rhythmic pattern pervades the entire movement. The second theme brings with it a measure of lyrical respite, but we are never far from the almost overbearing presence of the staccato rhythmic pattern.

Toru Takemitsu: From Far Beyond Chrysanthemums and November Fog
When Toru Takemitsu died seventeen years ago, the world lost one of its greatest composers of the late twentieth century. The enormous list of prestigious commissions, honours, awards and prizes he received (including the $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize in Ottawa in 1996) attest to his stature as one of the preeminent musical figures of our time. Takemitsu’s great achievement was to synthesize with a high degree of success aspects of both Western and Oriental esthetics and techniques. A preoccupation with timbres, textures, colours and evanescent sonorities is the hallmark of Takemitsu’s style, while freely evolving musical material, contemplative moods and a sensation of quasi-spatial experience inform most of his music. In addition, there is a sense of profound reserve and self-control in this music, which is often dreamy, sensuous, delicate and imbued with a huge palette of delicate pastels. The title From Far Beyond Chrysanthemums and November Fog (1983) comes from a stanza of a poem entitled “In the Shadow” by the Japanese poet Makoto Ooka. Takemitsu exploits the idea of “shadow” in the music by using what he calls six “dominant” pitches and six “shadow” pitches.

Maurice Ravel: Tzigane
It was through the Hungarian violinist Jelly D’Aranyi that Ravel became acquainted with gypsy music; he found it so fascinating that he determined to write a piece in this style for her. Two years later, he produced the Tzigane (French for gypsy, and related to the German Zigeuner), modeled after the freely structured Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano by Liszt. D’Aranyi and Ravel gave the first performance in London on April 26, 1924. The violin part was phenomenally difficult, and d’Aranyi had only a few days to learn it, but such was her mastery that Ravel remarked: “If I had known, I would have made the music still more difficult.” That July he transcribed the piano part for full orchestra.
The work opens with a long, unaccompanied presentation of the melodic material by the solo violin. In the course of a freely rhapsodic succession of ideas employing the so-called gypsy scale, the instrument indulges in all manner of virtuosic effects, including harmonics, double, triple and even quadruple stops.

Leoš Janáček:Violin sonata
Janáček’s music is steeped in the folk music idioms and speech patterns of his Moravian homeland, located in the north central region of what was formerly Czechoslovakia. “The whole life of man is in folk music,” he proclaimed. Hence, it comes as no surprise to find that this composer’s melodic material, both vocal and instrumental, follows closely the inflections, cadences and rhythms of the Czech language, and that he developed a uniquely expressive style.

Janáček left just one violin sonata, which he wrote in his sixties. (His two student works in the genre are lost.) “I wrote it at the beginning of the War when we were expecting the Russians in Moravia,” he declared. This was meant in a positive sense, for Janáček was counting on the Russians to liberate his country from the yoke of the Hapsburgs. Some listeners hear the sound of gunfire evoked in the final movement. Evocations of Russia can also be detected in the first and third movements, where the tone and melodic shapes resemble certain passages in Janáček’s opera Katya Kabanova, whose story comes from a Russian drama (The Storm by Ostrovsky). The sonata went through several transformations before arriving at its final form in 1922. The premiere was given that year in Brno by František Kudlaček and Jaroslav Kvapil.

André Previn: Tango, Song and Dance
André Previn unquestionably ranks among the most talented, versatile and best known musicians of our time. Now approaching his 82nd birthday, he sits comfortably at the pinnacle of numerous professions: as orchestrator (a service he was already providing MGM Studios back in high school), arranger, jazz pianist (as such he began recording in the days of 78s), classical pianist, conductor, television host, composer of film scores, author (of his memoir No Minor Chords) and composer of classical music.

Previn composed Tango, Song and Dance in 1997 as a set of lighthearted virtuoso pieces for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter. She and the composer gave the first performance on August 26, 2001 in Lucerne. Previn writes that in the first movement “the clustered harmonies are not terribly far removed from the sound the traditional accordion makes.” In the Song, “the violin predominates throughout, and the accompaniment is simple and direct.” Of the Dance, Previn notes that “I doubt whether dancers would be happy keeping time to this, but of course for two instrumentalists it becomes a good deal easier.”

 

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

Program Notes: Milos Karadaglic

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Program Notes: Miloš Karadaglić

Bach: Suite in C minor, BWV 997, for lute

In most catalogues of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), one learns that the composer wrote four suites for the lute, all dating from widely separated time periods, plus miscellaneous other pieces. However, recent scholarship has determined that in fact Bach did not actually write any music for the solo lute. Clive Titmuss, writing in Classical Guitar Canada last year, states that “the apocryphal lute works lie well within the confines of Bach’s established keyboard style,” and that they were probably written for various keyboard instruments, including something called the lute-harpsichord. (The G-minor Suite is an arrangement of the Fifth Suite for Solo Cello by way of a keyboard version.) Titmuss suggests that an unnamed German musicologist probably initiated the misconception sometime after Bach’s death, no qualified lute player challenged him, and the notion stuck. According to Titmuss, the so-called Lute Suites “are not technically possible on the lute without fundamental changes to the text,” a viewpoint essentially upheld by one of the outstanding lutenists of our time, Hopkinson Smith, in the introduction to his published edition of the suites.

None of this should detract in the least from our enjoyment of the music as played on guitar, in which form it is commonly heard today. The Suite BWV 997, composed in the late 1730s, comprises only two of the four dance movements that normally made up the core of a Bach suite (the stately Sarabande and the lively concluding Gigue; absent are the Allemande and Courante). The opening Preludio is also a familiar feature, but the following Fuga is most unusual to be found in a suite. The concluding Double is an elaborately ornamented variation of the preceding Gigue.

Villa-Lobos: Four pieces for guitar

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) was Brazil’s first composer of international stature and, along with Argentina’s Alberto Ginastera, one of the two greatest purely classical figures to emerge from South America. His life was also one of the most fascinating, exotic and colorful of any composer. Remarkable, scarcely credible tales abound, such as how he introduced the gramophone to isolated jungle tribes and how he barely escaped being cooked for dinner by cannibals. Among Villa-Lobos’ many accomplishments, he was an accomplished guitarist and was one of the first composers outside of Spain to write a substantial body of music for the guitar. This includes the twelve Estudios (Etudes), six Prelúdios (the sixth is lost) and the Suite populaire brésilienne (the French title reflects the composer’s seven-year sojourn in Paris), from which we hear the third movement, Valsa-choro.

The Etudes were written in the late 1920s for the great guitarist Andrés Segovia, who commented that they represent “enormous importance for the development of the performing technique of both hands [and] the lasting esthetic value of concert pieces.”

Nos. 11 and 12 form a satisfying pair, the former reflective and introspective, the latter imbued with fiery, motoric energy. The Preludes, also written for Segovia, evoke various aspects of Brazilian life. The melancholic first is subtitled “Homage to the Brazilian ‘country boy’.” A crucial element to Villa-Lobos’ musical makeup was the chorões – bands of bohemian street musicians in Rio de Janeiro whose free, rhapsodic, improvisational style of music-making suited Villa-Lobos’ personality perfectly. This influence is heard in the short Valsa-choro.

Guitar Music from South America

Miloš Karadaglić’s recital continues with works by four guitarist-composers born in South America. Jorge Morel (b. 1931) and Jorge Cardoso (b. 1949) both come from Argentina but now live respectively in New York City and Paris. Both are renowned as performers, pedagogues and composers. Morel is also known for his innovative approach to composing for the guitar. The multi-talented Cardosa (he also holds a degree in medicine) has composed over four hundred works and has made nearly as many transcriptions and arrangements of folk-inspired music of South American lands as well as of Renaissance figures and composers of the Spanish Baroque. More than 150 guitarists have recorded his music. From each of these Argentine composers we hear a folk-inspired dance number.

We also hear music by composers from two of South America’s smaller nations, the Uruguayan-born Isasís Sávio (1900-1977) and the Paraguayan-born Agustín Pío Barrios (1885-1944). Sávio spent most of his career in São Paulo and became a Brazilian citizen, teaching in the big cities (a number of his students went on to international fame) and performing in the country’s smallest towns and villages. His music is heavily influenced by Brazilian folkore. Batucada is the traditional samba music played by large percussion groups in Brazil’s carnival parades. Barrios was the most important composer to come out of Paraguay and one of the finest guitarists of the early twentieth century. In addition to a large catalogue of over three hundred pieces, Barrios is also credited with being the first classical guitarist ever to record. Around 1930 he took to appearing in concert dressed in traditional Guarani costume and assumed the persona of Nitsuga Mangoré. (“Nitsuga” is Agustín spelled backwards; Mangoré was an early-sixteenth-century chief of the Timbués people.) Although he lived mostly in the twentieth century, Barrios’ music is essentially romantic in spirit. John Duarte, one of England’s leading guitarist specialists, described Sueño en la floresta (Dream in the Magic Garden) as “a spellbinding exercise in tremolo, utterly idiomatic to the guitar.”

Domeniconi: Koyunbaba, Op. 19

Much like Villa-Lobos’ music, that of Carlo Domeniconi (b. 1947) can be seen as a synthesis of two cultures. The Italian-born guitarist and composer studied at the Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro and later in Berlin, where he taught at the conservatory for twenty years and where he now lives. As a composer, he has written more than twenty concertos for one, two, three or four guitars. His love affair with the people and culture of Turkey has resulted in numerous compositions inspired by that land, including his most famous composition, the four-movement suite Koyunbaba (1985). The title may be translated either as “sheep-father,” (shepherd), or “spirit of the sheep.” It is also the name of a thirteenth-century mystic who lived in the southwestern region of the country, a region of vast landscapes and striking, contrasting features. “Each of the four movements,” writes John Duarte, “develops a separate mood in the hypnotic fashion of eastern music and on a time-scale that reflects the unhurried life of both shepherd and mystic, using a wide range of the guitar’s available devices and textures.

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

Program Notes: Narek Hakhnazaryan

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Program Notes: Narek Hakhnazaryan

César Franck: Sonata in A major

For most of his life, Franck led a relatively quiet existence as an organist and pedagogue, emerging from obscurity as a composer only near the end of his life. His only violin sonata (which has also been arranged for numerous other instruments, notably flute, viola and cello) was created in 1886 as a wedding gift for his friend, the famous Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, who gave the premiere the same year. This sonata remains one of the composer’s most popular works, and well demonstrates his spontaneous, exuberant variety of romanticism.

The first three notes (D – F# – D) of the cello’s initial statement serve as the sonata’s principal thematic link. This opening movement is in standard sonata form, with the first theme assigned initially to the cello, the second to the piano. The serene lyricism of the first movement is replaced by restless excitement and intense passion in the second. The tension gradually abates, and a less stormy Quasi lento section follows. After restatements of material from both sections, the movement closes with a coda, which consists of a long crescendo building to an exciting climax. The third movement has an improvisatory nature, and features cadenza-like passages for the cello. The finale is without doubt one of Franck’s most charming and inspired creations. Canonic imitation (one voice following the other at a specified time interval) at the octave is used throughout, creating between the two instruments a remarkable dialogue seldom matched in the repertory of the accompanied sonata.

Frédéric Chopin: Introduction and Polonaise brillante, Op. 3

Everyone knows that the piano was the heart and soul of Chopin’s existence, but if the composer could be said to have had a second love, it was for the cello. His interest in this instrument began in his teens. Scattered among his many piano pieces are four works that include cello: the Introduction and Polonaise brillante; a Trio for piano, violin and cello; the Grand Duo Concertante for cello and piano; and the Cello Sonata – in fact, the sum total of his chamber music output except for a set of variations for flute and piano.

The work we hear this afternoon was composed in two separate parts. First came the Polonaise in October of 1829 when Chopin was just nineteen, written for the amateur cellist Prince Radziwell and his teen-age pianist daughter Wanda. However, the dedication went to another cellist, the Viennese virtuoso Josef Merk. For still a third cellist, the Pole Józef Kaczynski, Chopin wrote the Introduction in April 1830 for a performance together with the Polonaise. The brilliante part of the title may be Chopin’s or it may be the Viennese publisher Mechetti’s. The polonaise is indeed brilliant in its effect, despite the composer’s own opinion that there was “nothing to it but dazzle.” True, “there is dazzle, and plenty of it,” writes Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski. “After all, brillant means sparkling. But there is also bravura, verve and a Slavic, typically polonaise vigor, as well as an undeniable feel for the spirit of the dance.”

György Ligeti: Solo cello sonata

György Ligeti followed in the line of distinguished twentieth-century Hungarian composers that runs from Bartók and Kodály through Sándor Veress and Miklós Rózsa. When he died seven years ago at the age of 83, he was internationally recognized as one of the leading composers of his generation. Since the early 1960s, Ligeti (pronounced LIG-ih-tee) had been on the cutting edge of experimental music as one of the leaders in the emancipation of sound effects, timbres and textures from their traditionally subordinate roles, giving them a raison d’être of their own. Many of us became aware of his music through Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, in which the instrumental sonoric tapestries of Atmosphères (1961), the Requiem for voices and orchestra, and the choral Lux aeterna (1966) were used as fitting backdrops for desolate moonscapes.

The two movements of this nine-minute sonata were written five years apart in very different character, though the composer refers to this period of his stylistic development as “prehistoric.” “Dialogo,” composed in 1948, consists of alternating statements of pizzicato chords – brief, submissive, conciliatory – and lyrical outpourings – expansive, reflective, ruminative. “Capriccio” is a virtuosic display of madly scurrying fragments of varying lengths that exploit to the fullest the cello’s enormous range.

Due to the repressive Hungarian regime under which Ligeti lived until 1956 (when he fled the country) and to his unsettled life for years thereafter, the first public performance of the sonata was given only in 1983. The score was published in 1990 and first recorded that year by Matt Haimovitz.

Mikhail Bronner: The Jew: Life and Death

Mikhail Bronner studied composition with Tikhon Khrennikov and orchestration with Yriy Phortunatov at the high School of the Moscow Conservatory, then continued his studies at the Moscow Conservatory where he completed graduate work in 1981. Soon thereafter he began attracting professional recognition, particularly for his ballet scores for An Optimistic Tragedy (1985) and The Taming of the Shrew (1996), both presented at leading theatres in Moscow. Much of his music is theatrically oriented, and much of it relates to Jewish history and/or Old Testament themes and characters. His Jewish Requiem (1994), performed throughout Germany, is a notable example. The Jew: Life and Death dates from 1996. It is a deeply introspective, passionate work that portrays with grim realism in the space of ten minutes the tragic element in Jewish history. Images of sighing, weeping, the desperate wringing of hands and the anguish of darkly troubled souls are portrayed with grim realism.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Nocturne, Op. 19, no. 4, and Pezzo Capriccioso, Op. 62

As Tchaikovsky is one of Bronner’s favorite composers, it is entirely appropriate that Bronner’s work be followed by music of the Russian master. The Nocturne is a transcription Tchaikovsky made in 1888 of a piano piece dating from 1873 (the fourth of the Six Pieces Op. 19). Written in simple ternary form (ABA), its central, slightly faster episode was borrowed years later by Stravinsky as one of the tunes he incorporated into his ballet score The Fairy’s Kiss. When the melancholic opening material returns it is slightly varied.

Tchaikovsky wrote the Pezzo capriccioso for his cellist fried Anatoly Brandukov, who gave the first performance on December 7, 1889 with the composer conducting. The title is meant to suggest a kind of flippancy or “toying around” with a basic mood. In doing so, the soloist gets to demonstrate a variety of skills:  tone quality, singing line, technical agility and control in the high range.

 

Program notes by Robert Markow, 2013.

The Story of Miloš Karadaglić

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An in-depth, personal account on Miloš Karadaglić – spanning his journey from an eight year old learning guitar in Montenegro to how he has become “the hottest property in classical music today.” (West Australian)

If you were asked to name classical music’s most legendary guitar players, you’d probably come up with Andres Segovia, Julian Bream and John Williams. Miloš Karadaglić, born in 1983, who is already being hailed by fans and critics for his brilliant technique and transcendent musicality, may well be on his way to joining them. With two recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, he aims to start bringing a new sense of excitement, and new waves of listeners, to the classical guitar.

“My motto is: there are no problems, only challenges!” declared the young musician from Montenegro, a small country on the Adriatic Sea which once formed part of Yugoslavia.

Coming from a homeland with no real classical guitar tradition and a population of only 600,000, the challenges faced by Miloš if he was to climb the international guitar-playing ladder were daunting. At least he comes from a family of music lovers, even though none of his relatives are musicians (both his parents are economists, and his younger brother is currently studying for a Masters’ degree in economics in Madrid).

Before he first wrapped his fingers round a guitar, he had already displayed a natural aptitude for singing.

“Music was very much loved in my family, by my parents and my grandmother,” he recalls. “They really encouraged me to sing because the voice is something that comes most naturally. Then when I was eight I said ‘I really want to learn properly and go to a music school’, and there was only one place, which was the music school in Podgorica.”

Miloš comfortably passed the audition, but then came the problem of what instrument he should study. He picked the guitar because it proved to be the most practical choice.

“I liked the piano very much but my parents said it was too expensive to have one. Then I liked the violin too, but they said ‘oh, that would be really painful for us!’”

Guitar-wise, the first, and unlikely, object of his desire was an ancient instrument which his father had once been given by his older brother.

“It was a really ugly old black guitar which had been forgotten about and was sitting on top of the cupboard in my parents’ bedroom,” he recalls. “It had missing strings, it was all dusty and it was terrible. I said ‘can you give me that, I just want to feel it.’ I vividly remember this scene, the moment when I picked it up for the first time and pretended to be a rock star. I said ‘this is what I want to play’.”

But he didn’t play it in a rock ’n ’roll style. Miloš studied strictly classical guitar from day one, according to the program laid down by the state music school.

“It was still kind of Communist then, so there were no private teachers. If you were talented you went to the music school and had sol-fa teaching for the voice, and worked on the instrument you had chosen. This was for six years.”

The early Nineties weren’t the best of times for the Balkans. Although Montenegro didn’t suffer the kind of horrors that were visited on Bosnia or Kosovo, it didn’t escape unscathed.

“War was happening all around,” says Miloš. “Montenegro was a part of Yugoslavia and politically it wanted to stay in Yugoslavia, so it was dragged into the conflict. It was the scariest time. I remember the father of some children I played with was killed in the war, so it affected everybody indirectly. I was lucky to have the most unbelievable parents. All the shops were empty and everything was so depressing, but with the little they had they tried to make my brother and myself feel like princes.”

For Miloš and his family, music provided reassurance and escape: “I remember once there was a power cut and we were trying to keep warm. My mum said ‘why don’t you bring your guitar and play something for us?’ It was like the music kept us going.”

Meanwhile, Miloš’s playing was developing at a stunning speed. He had never been afraid to perform in public, and as his skills improved he was quick to display them in front of audiences. He had begun making appearances in major concert halls by the time he was 14.

“It was all happening extremely fast and there was a great sense of achievement. I was thrown into concerts and given ridiculously hard pieces to play, but I coped and I always loved it. As soon as I could play a piece I had to play it in front of a thousand people. I think all these experiences in my childhood not only made me a happy person, but also left me equipped for whatever is happening right now. Without the audience I am not complete. The audience makes me come alive.”

During the war years, the Montenegrins felt isolated from the outside world and weren’t able to travel beyond their own borders. But at last the hostilities ceased, and the restrictions eased. In 1996, Miloš was invited to play a concert in Paris, and his trip there remains one of his most special and magical memories.

“I just played a small concert in Paris, but it was my first chance to get out of my country and see the happy Western world,” he says, lighting up at the recollection. “I remember my mother and myself walking around the streets of Paris, and suddenly we were in the Champs Elysées. It was just before Christmas and the whole city was lit up. I was just drawn to the shops and their windows. I thought ‘my God, this is how life should be, in full colour.’”

It was in Paris too that Miloš bought his first serious guitar, a Jose Ramirez instrument would that help him take his playing to the next level. “My parents gave all their savings so I could buy that guitar,” he says. “It’s another reason why I see Paris as such a magical place.”

Another turning point came when he travelled to Italy to meet the classical guitarist David Russell, who was giving masterclasses. The ambitious Miloš wanted to measure himself against one of the guitar’s top practitioners.

“There was a big international competition going on at the same time,” he remembers, “and all these older students were watching this kid playing so fast and so clean, and I thought ‘hmm, they’re looking at me!’ I started to feel important. Then I played for David Russell, and he said I was very good and should keep working.”

When Miloš asked where the best place was in the world to study classical guitar, Russell promptly advised him to go to London and aim to enroll at the Royal Academy of Music, as Russell himself had done.

The advice struck home. Miloš made the fateful decision that he would specialize in music for his next two years at secondary school.

“It’s a huge choice to make when you’re 14, but that’s how the system works. Everyone was saying ‘he must do music’, but on the other hand I was also a good student in science and the humanities. But I decided to dedicate my life to music.”

Determined to get himself to London and the RAM, Miloš applied himself single-mindedly to improving his technique and building up his repertoire, winning every available competition in Yugoslavia and taking additional lessons in Belgrade. He had gone as far as he could go in his homeland.

“I decided I would send my material to London. I chose five of my best pieces and recorded a tape of them, and sent it to the Royal Academy. After two months I hadn’t heard anything. My mother said ‘you’re only 16, you can try again next year’, but I refused to accept it.”

Plucking up his courage, he telephoned the Academy, and asked what had happened to his application: “The lady said ‘wait a minute’, and then she came back and said ‘it’s wonderful news! Didn’t you get our letter? You’ve been accepted, the head of studies Michael Lewin will teach you, and you will have a scholarship of such-and-such amount of money. See you in September, bye!’”

So, just turned 17, Miloš found himself starting a new life in a strange city. His father accompanied him to London, and was there to give his son a shoulder to cry on when the enormity of what he was about to embark upon briefly overwhelmed him. Fortunately, his teacher, Professor Michael Lewin, understood what he was going through.

“He was the nicest person,” says Miloš, “and he said ‘if I didn’t know that you are more than good enough to do this, I wouldn’t have done this to you and your family because I know what it means. We’ll take it one step at a time and you will achieve everything’. For me, from then on, everything was fine.”

Despite his undoubted gifts, Miloš quickly discovered that he didn’t know everything about the classical guitar after all. His teachers in Montenegro hadn’t been true guitar specialists, and various imperfections had crept into his technique.

“Michael Lewin gave me a little study by Fernando Sor, and the Sor studies were pieces I had digested in my first year of guitar playing. Then we had the lesson, and I realized that actually I could not do everything that he asked me to. I had to start again and listen and work. Often Michael had to slowly adjust my hand positions, while still preserving the spirit of the music. For the next four years at the Academy I worked and practiced – so many levels, so many different concerts, deadlines and preparations. It was very intense and I didn’t do anything apart from practicing and sleeping.”

Eventually, Miloš graduated with First Class honours in June 2004. Then he continued his studies with a two-year Masters’ degree in Performance, in which he achieved a Distinction. Following that, he became the first guitarist ever to be made a Meaker Junior Fellow of the RAM, which gave him a further two years’ breathing space to study and perform.

Emerging into the world of professional musicianship, he notched up prestigious appearances at the Lucerne Festival, the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room. He had also brought his prize-winning ways to London, collecting the Ivor Mairants Award in 2002 and the Julian Bream Prize (awarded by Bream himself) in 2005. He was also the first guitarist to win the Prince of Wales’ Prince’s Prize.

When planning for his debut disc for Deutsche Grammophon (Mediterraneo), Miloš prepared himself with typical thoroughness. Rather than merely assembling a batch of popular guitar pieces, he devised a theme for the album which reflects his own history and experiences. He is, as he points out, from the Mediterranean region, but for him that doesn’t just mean he should play guitar music from Spain.

“The guitar was brought to Spain by the Moors, and has a huge Arabic influence,” he explains. “My part of the world and the eastern Mediterranean were heavily under the influence of the Ottoman empire for 500 years, so there is a clear connection between the eastern and western Mediterranean. I am exactly in the middle of them, and I want to present that on [the] recording.”

Therefore, the material ranges from Granados, Albeniz and Tarrega (“to represent the Moorish Spain”) to pieces by the Greek composer Theodorakis, some Turkish music, and new arrangements of Montenegrin folk songs. For good measure, “we have a Boccherini fandango which will even use castanets.” Mediterraneo was released in 2011 and topped the charts throughout the year all over the world. Miloš’s recently released his sophomore album Latino, where his inspiration moves from the Mediterranean to the sultry sounds and passion of Latin America.

Summing up his feelings about the future, Miloš says:

“There isn’t a more accessible or more beautiful instrument than the guitar. The guitar repertoire is wonderful and there is a lot of it. It needs to be brought out of its niche and to have a renaissance. This is my mission!”

 

 

source: www.milosguitar.com

 

Miloš Karadaglić plays in recital for the VRS on Sunday, February 17, 2013 at the Vancouver Playhouse at 3:00pm

Tickets start at $25 and can be purchased online or by phone at 604-602-0363


 

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