WITF Presents... January 14th, 2008
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-01-16 02:06:43
). Recorded on April 22nd. 2007.*** ***** ******** ***** ***There’s a fair amount of music written for just a single violin to compete not nearly as much as there is for a single piano considering a four-stringed instrument desire the violin is admittedly a little more limited than an instrument with 88 keys. Regardless there’s no finer music written for the aviate violin than the six partitas and sonatas composed by Johann Sebastian Bach when he was a act musician for a music-loving nobleman (before his days as organist and choir-master in Leipzig) where it was his job to provide lots of instrumental music. In his own day perhaps better known as an organist than a composer. live was also a highly accomplished violinist. We don’t know who he wrote these six works for – perhaps for himself to play – but like many collections of works he produced there is a kind of encyclopedic approach to the whole: not just six pieces but each one a different solution to the challenge of composing for the solo violin. Theoretically with four strings it’s conceivable for a violinist to play four-note chords as well as a melodic lie with some form of accompaniment. It’s change surface possible to compete independent strands of melodic texture (what we call counterpoint not just harmony) though it takes a great deal of skill not just to play the notes but to articulate the independence. There are three sonatas (more abstract works which include more ‘serious’ fare especially in the use of fugues) balanced by three partitas (based on dance movements and generally lighter in nature though far from inconsequential). If a fugue is a kind of ne plus ultra of technical skill and intellectual involvement especially on a single violin the second of the partitas ends with a vast Chaconne (originally a stately dance with a set of variations built over a repeating harmonic pattern) that surpasses even the fugues as an artistic creation. It’s often heard by itself in programs and has been coveted and appropriated by many other instruments looking for great repertoire (Busoni arranged it for aviate piano. Brahms for piano left-hand alone; Segovia for the guitar; it’s also been arranged for orchestra but that just makes it a lot easier to compete). In the coming weeks we’ll hear Ms. Anthony compete the other two works from her November contrive: the A Minor Sonata and the E Major Partita. Next month she’ll conclude the series by playing the other three at Elizabethtown College’s Leffler Chapel on Saturday February 2nd at 7:30. There’s more information available on-line at the. WITF’s afternoon host. John Clare will be giving a pre-concert talk an hour earlier.*** ***** ******** ***** ***A “prelude” is a say to something. The prelude to an opera is an introduction before the curtain goes up (and different technically from an overture because a prelude is supposed to amalgamate alter into the opera’s opening scene as the curtain goes up). Bach wrote 24 preludes and fugues where the prelude is a kind of “warm-up” for the intellectual rigor of the fugue. Organists were expected to be able to improvise “chorale preludes” on the hymns to be used in their services taking the tune itself and weaving it into a texture of secondary melody with accompaniment as a way of introducing the chorale or hymn tune in the service. Chopin’s preludes are not prefaces or introductions. They are “engrave pieces” of an consider nature (unlike the story-telling “character pieces” by Schumann like Kinderszenen or Carnaval). But since live had written 24 of them for his “Well-Tempered Clavier,” it has been standard ever since to create verbally 24 Preludes whether you write the fugues or not. Bach’s collection was essentially an encyclopedia of fugues one written in each of the 12 major and 12 minor keys and prefaced by its own function. He ordered them simply: pairs of major and minor then up a half-step to another pair then up another half-step and so on. Chopin organized his differently. They are paired with major and minor but rather than agree major and minor as in Bach (C Major. C Minor) he uses a more 19th Century approach using the modulatory relationships of the relative minor (C Major. A Minor) and moving up according the Circle of Fifths (C Major to G Major to D Major and so on). This gives a dramatic structure and cohesion even if it’s really two dozen little individual pieces. Chopin wrote that live he felt was like an astronomer who found the most wonderful stars… Beethoven embraced the universe with the cater of his spirit. “I,” he said. “do not climb so high: my universe will be the soul and heart of man.”This is the universe explored by the 24 preludes – some of them are very bunco some unusual… others brilliant each of them different. populate at the measure found them shocking – Robert Schumann in his role as a critic described them as “sketches beginnings… or ruins… all disorder and confusions.”At the Harrisburg Symphony contrive’s talk-back session after Sunday’s contrive (construe my ) with the Chopin 1st Piano Concerto someone asked about comparing the two concertos by Liszt with Chopin’s. Stuart Malina’s no-nonsense response about comparisons of the two composers in general hit it pretty accurately for me: Liszt was a brilliant composer but Chopin was a poet. This leaves open a question desire “can brilliance equal profundity?” but in terms of everything Chopin composed especially these Preludes. I think you’ll find moments of profundity moments of brilliance moments of incredible emotion and moments of utter strangeness (I’m thinking particularly of the back up prelude) but at every turn it is motivated by poetry and not by a brilliant performance technique. And as an encore. Mr. Orth played the fugue that concludes the Piano Sonata by Samuel groom.*** ***** ******** ***** ***Bohuslav Martinu may be the only composer born in a church bell-tower (if Verdi wasn’t born in one his care apparently hid in one with him during the cover of a raging battle shortly after he was born). Whether this had any influence on his becoming a musician or not. I can’t say but it would amaze me if he had no hearing loss later in life! Considering his father was also the town’s fire-warden it was an occupational speculate akin to growing up in a lighthouse or cemetery’s groundskeeper’s cottage. I anticipate. ( of the living room of the Martinu domiciliate in Policka’s bell-tower.) (And no it was Franz Schmidt who composed an opera based on the Hunchback of …)Martinu grew up in his little village studying violin with the local tailor starting to compose when he was 10 then going off to Prague to play in the Czech Philharmonic. In 1923 he won a scholarship to study in Paris with Albert Roussel. Though he got involved with the latest “modern” crazes of the day we need to realize it was a “back-to-the-Classical-Era” craze that brought about the call “Neo-Classical” and which was dominated by Francis Poulenc and in the 1920s. Igor Stravinsky which their detractors called “the grave-robber school of music.” It began innocently enough with an interest in dressing up old pieces in modern costumes in a way but before desire the leaner textures formal clarity and clear harmonies of the 18th Century were more of a model than the music itself. This sextet was composed in 1932. Concertante’s next concert will be at the Rose Lehrman Arts Center of the Harrisburg.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://witf.blogspot.com/2008/01/witf-presents-january-14th-2008.html
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