Program Notes, 2010
by Durrell Bowman
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July 28 – Wednesday Upbeat!
Dvořák – Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor ("Dumky")
Penderecki – String Quartet No. 3
Bartók – Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
Antonín Dvořák
Czech composer Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) had a flair for memorable tunes and orchestrations. He also succeeded in combining Western Classical forms with Bohemian nationalism and folk-like melodies. He is best known for his orchestral works (such as Symphony No. 9, "From the New World") and for other large-scale works (such as his Cello Concerto and Czech language operas). However, he also wrote a large number of chamber works, including fourteen string quartets, the Quintet in A major for Piano and Strings (performed on July 30), the String Quintet in G major (July 7), and the Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor ("Dumky"). The son of a butcher, during his early career Dvořák earned some income as a violist and organist in Prague. He then won a prestigious government grant and, later in his career, taught at the University of Prague. By the time he visited the US in the early 1890s, Dvořák was already considered a major international composer.
Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor ("Dumky" – Op. 90, 1890-91)
This work is steeped entirely in a single folk-music form: the dumka, which is a traditional epic or ballad form of a Ukrainian lament. The style mainly involves emphasizing the difference between slow, linear material and fast, Slavonic dances. The pieces are all in different keys, and the slower material generally returns after the faster, contrasting material. (In most of the pieces, the slow/fast contrast happens twice.) Thus, the effect of the whole work is more of a suite of related pieces than of differently-structured formal movements. The first piece begins with cello material ("Slow, but majestic") that is later played by the violin. A cheerful dance ("Quickly") eventually emerges. The second piece begins with a meditation-like cello section ("At a somewhat slow pace"), which is also followed by a faster dance ("Lively"). The third piece functions as an interlude ("At a walking pace"), with the somewhat faster, contrasting material largely in a minor key. The fourth piece ("At a moderate walking pace, sort of like a march") incorporates a lively Scherzo section. The fifth piece ("Quickly") has slow, fairly short sections that are contrasted by longer, fast sections. The sixth and final piece ("Slow, but majestic") is similar to the opening one. It has one the work's most active dances, but the final moments of this closing piece (a brief coda) at first become more restful again, but the work then ends with a loud, final flourish.
Krzysztof Penderecki
Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933) has visited a wide range of compositional styles and genres. His early successes included prize-winning works in Poland. In his late-twenties and early-thirties, he then became internationally well-known for his complex, "tonality-stretching" works. Such compositions include the Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima and the Passion According to St. Luke. The experimental techniques of such works include glissandos (pitch slides), note clusters, unpitched sounds, speech, and chance-based effects. Five of Penderecki's orchestral works from 1961-74 were notably used in Stanley Kubrick's major motion-picture (1980) of Stephen King's horror novel The Shining (1977). Similarly, David Lynch has also used some of the composer's works. In the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s, Penderecki generally explored a style that used updated approaches to such traditional compositional elements as melody and harmony. However, his later compositions are still often difficult, chaotic, and/or "demonic." His works have included the Grawemeyer Award-winning Symphony No. 4 ("Adagio"), the vocal/choral Symphonies No. 7 and 8, numerous additional orchestral and vocal/choral works (such as his Agnus Dei), four operas (including The Devils of Loudon and Paradise Lost), various concertos, solo instrumental works, and chamber music. The latter includes his two early string quartets (1960-68) and his much later String Quartet No. 3 (2008). He has received numerous awards and honors.
String Quartet No. 3 (2008)
In the book Labyrinth of Time (1997), Penderecki suggests that chamber music was becoming his best and clearest place to explore the possibility of a "grand synthesis" of the most fundamental materials of music. The commission for this work (subtitled "Leaves from an Unwritten Diary") was provided by Montclair State University's music, dance, and theater series and the University of Richmond's Center for the Arts. The Shanghai Quartet (Ensemble-in-Residence at Montclair) performed the work's premiere at a concert in Warsaw, Poland for the composer's 75th birthday in November 2008. The ensemble then also performed the work's US premiere at the Kasser Theater in Montclair, NJ in February 2009. The first of the work's five movements is marked as "Fairly Quick," but in fact it begins with a howling viola melody. This style, however, soon gives way to a driving, bright section and then to a waltz and a nocturne. The four subsequent movements are indicated as "Moderately, with motion," "Fast, but not too much," "Slowly," and "Moderately." However, these are fairly perfunctory markings, given Penderecki's penchant, though by now "postmodern," for temporal and other extremes. Also, the work's subtitle suggests that it contains musical and autobiographical sources. For example, the work includes intensely-fast passages and a climactic collision that are presumably meant to suggest the composer's earlier affinity for the avant-garde. However, it also contains a gypsy melody that the composer learned as a child from his violin-playing father.
Béla Bartók
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945) had a very full life as a composer, musician, teacher, and ethnomusicologist. After his studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he traveled throughout Europe to collect thousands of folk songs. The modal scales and rhythmic energy of such music inspired and influenced him throughout his career. As fascism began to take hold in Germany and Italy in the 1930s, he banned broadcasts of his works in those countries. He and his wife then left Hungary for the US in 1940. However, he began to suffer from leukemia and died in New York in 1945. Bartók's inventive, polychromatic orchestral works include the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and the Concerto for Orchestra. His string quartets and piano music (especially Mikrokosmos) are also staples of 20th century music. Many of his works explored mathematical constructions involving palindromes and/or proportions based on the golden mean (an irrational constant of approximately 1.618). However, his work is also infused with exciting, unusually-structured rhythms. His works also include Allegro barbaro, Contrasts (performed on July 21), the Rhapsodies for Violin and Piano (July 19), and the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937)
When he was a small child, Bartók played not only the piano, but also a drum. Decades later, the composer brought together his first two instruments in this work. It was commissioned by the International Society for Contemporary Music. The first movement ("Quite slowly") at first features the two pianos on a twisting, chromatic theme, accompanied by subtle timpani and occasional, frightening percussion outbursts. Sometimes, the pianos provide trills and glissandos. The movement gradually speeds up to a harsh-sounding, but also somewhat playful, Allegro. The contrasting theme is less precise rhythmically, harmonically, and instrumentally. A march then appears in the unusual time signature of 9/8, which is followed by a closing, fugue-like version of the movement's contrasting theme. The second movement ("Slowly, but not too much") is a nocturne ("night music"). It features sparse cymbals, triangle, and a soft drum sound. The pianos provide another chromatic theme, but this one is quite introspective in character. Later, the pianos contrast one another on divergent material, accompanied by xylophone. The third movement ("Quickly, but not too quickly") features an extremely elaborate interaction among the two pianists and the two percussionists. It is quite frenzied rhythmically, but it also has extremely strange harmonies and "melodies." The work ends, however, on a very basic C major chord and quite subtle percussion taps.